Bureaucracy is Fun!

Almost six months after getting married, I am finally going to my appointment at the Préfecture de Police.  Fab and I have been racing to get all of my/our documents ready since if even just one little document is missing or not up to their standards, they will cut off my head and feed me to the sharks in the Seine make me come back in two or three months.  Which isn't kosher for numerous reasons that I shan't renumerate here.

I look forward to my annual Immigration visit about as much as I look forward to a root canal.

I have been really dreading this year's immigration process because Claude Guéant's Interior Ministry is tightening up on immgration.  I know that this has yet to apply to me, but it is still disconcerting.  He (Guéant) hopes to reduce professional immigration by 10%, given the current economic conditions in France and its high unemployment rate.  It has caused quite the scandal among the nation's student population and university administrations, since it mostly concerns those who come to France to do their studies and then try to apply for jobs afterwards.  It's a xenophobic and racist policy, meant to play to those voters who might go for Marine Le Pen (France's borderline Facist political party leader) in the 2012 Presidential election.  She's got a softer discourse than her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, which means she has been appealing to more people (but not by wide margins...)  The Euro crisis ain't helping things either (who do people blame when unemployment is high?  Immigrants).  Basically, she has made Sarkozy's UMP party nervous about her performance in 2012.  Few people wish to repeat the election run-off between Jacques Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen of 2002.

Anyhow, I'm really glad that Forest of 52 Martinis put up this video on her Twitter feed.  It made me smile as well as shiver in anticipation of tomorrow.  I'll share it with you for a giggle.  We've all been through bureaucracy, no?