Have any EU Citizens (not French) brought an American spouse to France?

[petitmonstre]

Apologies for the double post, but I thought this forum might be more appropriate.  Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to offer.
I am an Irish Citizen and my US Citizen husband just went to the Consulate in NYC to apply for his long-stay visa. They turned him away. Why? Because they said he doesn't NEED one.  How can this be? 
* On their very own website, it states that a long-stay visa is needed by the Spouse of an EU Citizen to "settle down in France."  (more than 90 days stay)
* On the http://vosdroits.service-public.fr website, amongst the documents to furnish when applying for the CdS "CE - membre de famille - toutes activités professionnelles," it says "les documents qui ont permis l'entrée en France,"  Do they not mean passport AND visa?
I don't know what to do -- if we show up at the prefecture to apply for the CdS, with no visa, I am afraid he is going to have to come home and go through this exercise again.

[Anton Redman]

Might be worth having a look at :

http://www.americansintoulouse.com/index.php

 

[Cicero]

I am an English citizen with an American husband we came here two years ago, and he did not need a long stay visa. What you need is a Titre de sejour which you have to apply for within eight days of arriving. You need scads of paperwork but that is normal and once you have it keep it safe as you may need it again. We found the process painless but we have wonderful women working at our Mairie. We took the paperwork there and they did the rest. We had a letter from the Prefecture which I thought was a receipt and didn't read properly. So after some months of silence we went to the Mairie to find the letter was actually telling us to make an appointment. Our friendly worker at the Marie explained what had happened and with no more ado we got the card. Somehow we managed to skip the interview and medical examination part. I doubt everyone will be as lucky. However if you want to move to France do it and don't worry.

[Ade100]

I agree with Cicero but just a footnote.

When French people bring a non-EU family member to France, French law prevails. However for a citizen of another EU country, EU law prevails which is not so strict. So no medical exam, interview or language test is required.