Exchanging driving licence - saving time and registered letters !!!

[Manon]

I applied to change our licenses last spring and never got a reply from Nantes. I applied again in January and sent everything registered post and requiring a signature on receipt. To help save other people time and money, in addition to the documents you are told to send you need to send a copy of your birth and marriage certificates if you are a married woman, and in any case, if you only want to drive cars and not HGVs , add a signed letter to say that you ‘renonce ‘ categories C and D. I sent off the copies of the certificates today but obviously, in spite of asking for them yesterday, they aren’t bothered about them as today I received an email saying my license is on its way to me !!!!

Sorry if all this has been covered in earlier posts but I couldn’t face reading through 15 pages of posts and replies.

[Spider]

You are lucky to get it! According to the Connexion today they are returning all requests for the exchange of UK driving licenses unless they must be changed because of driving offenses etc.

https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Brexit/Prefecture-returns-driving-licence-applications

[Judith]

I'm amazed and gobsmacked.  They've had mine since Sept last and I've heard not a dicky bird.  Is there no justice in this world.  Exchange due to licence expiry à cause de mon age, and not a s*d to do with Brexit itself, which is even more of an insult.  Nantes really must get their act together soon. 

[Manon]

Did you send everything by registered post and requiring a signature ? I know it costs but I send everything official that way now -I didn’t the first time and never had a reply. Other friends who applied in October have received their licenses and my husbands application is now being dealt with. However, a friend who applied last Spring received his interim permit so long ago that it has now expired so has no license and no valid letter !

[Judith]

Yes, of course.  Some September sends have received their licences, some  have not .. as I say, no rhyme or reason, though I do know they are overwhelmed, dealing with applications in order doesn't seem an impossible ask.

[cajal]

[quote user="Manon"] However, a friend who applied last Spring received his interim permit so long ago that it has now expired so has no license and no valid letter ![/quote]

You couldn't make this stuff up.

[Judith]

Well I don't know, you could hardly imagine or  make up the shambles in the UK at present, could you, either?

[cajal]

Sorry, I don't quite follow the connection between the exchange to a French driving licence and to what it is you are referring to in the UK.

[Judith]

They are both a shambles, though slightly less so in the Nantes case. And if I hadn't seen it all playing out as they both  have I would never have believed it and thought they were both fairy stories ..

[woolybanana]

Just think, if the fonctionnaires had been working their contracted hours there would probably be no queue, but then they would be bored, poor dears.

In the days when the licences were exchanged in the département I was struck by the sheer inefficiency and chaos of the process. Strict order of processing by date of receipt which meant that problem applications, often with dodgy paperwork from countries unnamed held up the whole process, then all funnelled through one person who had to recheck each one.

If this process has been inherited by Nantes then it will be simply bordel.

Returning UK licences in anticipation of Breshit is a useful way of reducing the waiting list, of course.