Une nouvelle vie, une nouvelle entreprise
Usually I feel a hint of frustration when local courier companies interpret 'signature required' to mean 'get a signature if you can be arsed'. Not a few weeks ago when a padded envelope softly thudded against our front door, I was more excited about the contents than concerned with the integrity of the mail system.
I opened the door to find the envelope on our doorstep with the suggestion 'signature required' face up, while the courier, who apparently moves faster than the speed of light, was driving away down the street. The contents: my wife's and my passports, and importantly, a significant milestone in a year-long journey, our French visas... or not!
Because the French like to sprinkle a bit of suspense into their visa application process by sending you an email that a decision has been made on your visa application and your passport is on its way back to you. But they don't tell you what that decision is. Instead, you have to wait for your passport to return in the post to find a visa in it, or not. And make sure you are home when it arrives, because the courier requires a signature, or not.
Despite the thrilling two days of watching parcel tracking updates on the internet, the staff at the French embassy were excellent. We had our visa appointment on a Tuesday, the same day as a huge protest in New Zealand's capital. The embassy kindly offered to reschedule if we weren't able to make our appointment due to the disruptions caused by the protest. We were able. During the appointment they asked us a few simple questions about why we wanted to live in France, took our paperwork that we had been amassing for the last year and said it would take two to three weeks for a decision. They then lovingly surprised us six days later by email with a parcel tracking number.
So it was the following Wednesday when the envelope thudded against the front door and we gleefully discovered that our passports were indeed, emblazoned with brand new French visas. Approximately one year after we made the decision that we would like to build a new life and business in France.
Here's a quick recap of that year and the process we went through:
In January we decide we want to live in France and start exploring visa options.
By March we have learnt about micro-entrepreneur visas, a pathway into France for budding entrepreneurs. We start learning French.
The next four to five months are spent preparing our business plan, as well as planning how to move your life to another country. We hired a French adviser who gave us some great insight on what the French authorities are looking for.
September, we submit our plan to the French website for approving business plans for micro-entrepreneur visas and we were immediately informed that we should be applying for a different visa, but no mention of which one.
With the help of our adviser we arrived at the conclusion we should have been applying for talent visas not micro-entrepreneur visas. We humbly accepted that our years of professional experience and qualifications made us over-qualified for micro-entrepreneur visas. We start researching talent visas and re-working our business plan.
Late September we submit our newly re-worked plan to the website for approving business plans for talent visas.
Less than a week later we receive a very official looking email saying that our business plan is acceptable to the French authorities and attached is a letter to submit with our visa application. We applied for our visa application appointment with the French embassy that day, only to find out there is a six week wait.
Mid November, New Zealand's capital is preparing for one of the biggest protests it has ever seen and we are on our way to the French embassy, right next to the protest.
Eight days later our passports arrive on our doorstep. Nobody signed for them.
That is how our business, Palomera Web Design (https://palomerawebdesign.com), came to be.
Looking back, we could have sped the process along by booking our appointment with the embassy in advance. We knew we needed the approval of the French authorities on the business plan to take to the visa appointment but we didn't know we were going to get it so quickly, or at all! We could have thrown caution to the wind and booked our appointment at the same time as submitting our business plan for approval, but we didn't.
We received lots of great advice from forum groups and are grateful to all those who helped us and shared their business plans with us. We offer a template of our business plan for free for anyone else is going through this process, just contact us and we will send it to you. If you have any other questions or need advice we would be happy to help anyone who needs it, just get in touch. It's been a long and confusing process, hindsight has given us some clarity that we hope can guide others. Who knows, maybe we will meet in France one day. Bonne chance!
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