“Taking into account the health context”, the duration of residence permits is extended. Following the spread of the Coronavirus in France, the Paris Prefecture of Police announced, on Monday, March 16, 2020, that the residence permits for foreigners will be extended for 3 months. A decision that arises given the complications inherent in Coronavirus in France.
The period of validity of residence permits currently in circulation, including long-stay visas, certificates of asylum application and receipts and provisional residence permits, is extended by three months, specifies the prefecture in a tweet.
The aim is to avoid calling into question rights and requests that the administrations are unable to process at present. However, adds the prefecture, “it is not recommended for foreigners with an expired title benefiting from this extension to leave French territory, at the risk of encountering difficulties to re-enter French territory”.
Many countries, including recently Switzerland and Spain, have announced the closure of their land borders with France. Berlin has also decided to carry out checks at its land borders with Austria, France, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Switzerland. The European Commission, for its part, proposed Monday to ban “non-essential” trips to the European Union, with derogations, for an initial period of 30 days.
“The fewer trips there are, the more we can contain the virus”, explained European Executive President Ursula von der Leyen in a video on Twitter, then in a press conference in Brussels after a videoconference with G7 leaders. This proposal will have to be approved by the EU heads of state and government, who have their own video meeting on Tuesday. British citizens are not affected by these restrictions, as they are still considered to be “European citizens”.