As the year winds down and 2026 comes barreling around the corner, I’m braced for something I thought I’d achieved acceptance of: uncertainty.
In the years I’ve been in France, I’ve written about the terrible, existential angst that uncertainty has wrought many times, often trying to separate what angst was “normal” with respect to simply being in one’s 20s and what angst was being exacerbated by choosing to live most of that decade in France, a country I cannot honestly say I would have stayed in long-term had it not been for that most exquisitely uncertain certainty called love.
When I was 24 and trying to find jobs in Strasbourg after completing an expensive 3-month, intensive French class through Alliance Française, I asked myself: Am I feeling directionless because French employers won’t even look at my resumé if it doesn’t match the specific background (formation) that they’re looking for, (which is the case whether you’re applying to be a barista or a junior-level marketer, and beyond), or am I feeling directionless because I genuinely don’t know how to begin building an early career based off of my undergraduate degree (something that many people in the US struggle with, too)?
When I was 26 and reluctantly filing paperwork to create a freelance writing business from Montpellier, I told myself: It’s OK to not know where you’re going with this, but it’s not OK to stop without a reason. France, always alert to opportunities to lay down an iron fist against any sort of creative approach, said, “Here’s a reason!” and refused my request for ACRE, a provision that cuts the taxes of new business owners by half for the first year, notably because I was too old. My take-home that first year was less than $20,000.
Then, I was 30, standing in front of an immigration agent at the prefecture. It was an unseasonably warm December day, and I had dressed with confidence for the first time in seven years of visa and residency card applications and renewals. I was married to a Frenchman and I was independently financially stable, with the tax returns to prove it. The dossier also included proof of six years of cohabitation, our civil union and marriage papers, and various documents demonstrating my integration into French society, such as my volunteer work with 5th Cat, a cat rescue founded by a French friend, and a trusty attestation from Alliance Française certifying my language level as B2 since 2019.
The agent, a young woman I estimated to be in her 30s, was in a mood from the beginning. You know when you dress for success, only to encounter someone who takes that as a challenge to knock you down a peg? That was the vibe.
Flipping through the papers with increasing force, she alighted on the document declaring my language level and froze. “This won’t work,” she announced, after several seconds of silence.
Thibault, present because your partner must be with you when renewing a residency card as a spouse, touched my hand beneath the counter where she couldn’t see.
“What do you mean,” I said, calmly, “that it doesn’t work? This is the same document I’ve used for every renewal since I moved to Strasbourg.”
The agent haughtily explained that the document I had was an “attestation,” and I needed a “diploma” or “certificate.” I replied that, according to the list of documents that the prefecture (her place of work) had sent me, and as it related to my application to renew residency as the spouse of a French person, the language level was meant to be reviewed as proof of integration into French society – not an essential component of the core application.
Understanding we were about to commence that most challenging of cultural interactions, the Dance with French Administration, I then asked her to produce the list of documents she was working from, since we seemed to be working from different lists. This was said in an apologetic tone, because these people appreciate when you imply that the misunderstanding is because you must be an idiot.
She refused; I politely insisted.
She demanded I show her the list I was working from; I produced the copy I had printed for her in the event of such a challenge as the one she was making. (Another step in this dance – always anticipate that you will be responsible for producing physical evidence of your correctness.)
She studied it briefly and said it didn’t matter; she would not accept the attestation noting my language level, and therefore, today’s appointment was over. My eyes narrowed. Wasn’t it a bit ironic, I asked coolly, to be quibbling with the language used to validate my French language level on paper when we were currently debating in French.
I then repeated, yet again, my request that she produce the list of documents she was working from so that I could come back another time better prepared. Agitated into reacting, she stomped off and came back, satisfyingly, but surprisingly, empty-handed.
Without looking at us, she sat down and looked intently at the monitor showing my entire immigration history. Thibault, pivoting into mediator-mode, asked if, instead, the agent might consider accepting my materials for a renewal of a pluriannuelle (multi-year card, 2-4 years) rather than the 10-year residency card I was applying for. Turning to him, I whisper-hissed, “I have not spent seven years learning how to live in this fucking country to be refused the 10-year card that they said I was eligible for.”
Comfy in her chair while we leaned on the counter, the agent said, “Well, it doesn’t matter. The system is blocked anyway.”
What?! Thibault joined me in exclaiming this time. You see, she said, triumphantly turning her screen to show us a monitor that looked like something straight out of Bill Gates’ garage in the 90s, pixelated icons and all. The language issue doesn’t matter because your file is blocked. I can see here you applied for the wrong type of renewal via the portal.
Yes, I said, in exasperation, this was a technical error on the prefecture’s side and the reason I am here in person. In theory, this renewal request was eligible for online submission. I also have copies of those email communications. She waved them away.
“Well, anyway, it is not possible for me to unblock it, so you’ll have to come back in January,” she said, barely hiding her glee. “It’s not possible for you to unblock it?” I asked, incredulous.
“No, madame, there is one person in all of France who is responsible for deleting the applications, and they’re in Paris. I must submit a request.”
“OK. And can you tell me, generally, the time frame in which this person might get around to pushing the button that deletes my file and unblocks my portal?”
“Non, but I can tell you that you are not a priority.”
“You know,” she added in the pause during which I was attempting to control my face, which has always betrayed the exact thoughts I have about someone when they are being ridiculous and insufferable, “This would all have been much easier if you hadn’t taken such a…complex approach to living here.”
I have to admit, I swiped at the bait. “Excuse me, but what do you mean by ‘complex approach’?
“Well you see, it’s very bizarre (unusual) to come and try to stay as a spouse. If you would have just come as a student, you would have the correct document to certify your language level, and then you could have applied for a working salary visa. Et voilà.”
The barbs hit, and I saw red. Outraged, infuriated, fuck-you American red.
How dare she, I howled internally, mentally reeling over the cruelty of insinuating that I had not tried to stay “on my own,” (read: without going the private family visa route), when proof of my efforts to the contrary –a failed business development job for a random local startup, a job I got during the pandemic, and lost at the end of the trial period–was right in front of her on the antiquated screen.
How dare she insinuate that “getting a French husband” is the easy way out (read: because international, intercultural relationships are so easy).
How dare she insinuate that coming here as a foreign student, sitting through archaic French teaching styles involving hours of being talked at and rote memorization, passing tests, earning a degree or degrees, because most jobs require a masters, and then finding someone to sponsor your visa to work in a job that you are then dependent on for years to anchor you to this country, even if it becomes toxic, a bad fit, etc, is in any way “the easy” immigration route? To say nothing of the immigration hell that these brave people who “do it on their own” as we say in the Anglophone immigrant community go through at these same prefectures who run them ragged with requests for additional, arbitrary documents.
“You know perfectly well there’s nothing ‘unusual’ about foreigners moving here and staying through private family visas,” I snarled. “And I would like to politely request an official document that attests that the application I’m here to make has the right to be subject to 2025 rules, as the application has effectively existed since September.”
(For those unaware, a host of stricter, more difficult immigration procedures go into effect from January 1, 2026, impacting – you guessed it – my own renewal procedures and requirements.)
“No,” she said, smirking.
“Fine,” I repeated, slamming down a dusty American card in my arsenal. “Then I want to talk to the person you report to.”
“Sure,” she said, brightly, indicating the woman in the chair beside her who had been observing all of this in silence from the beginning of the appointment, an exemplar of the reason it’s absolutely useless to play the manager card in France.
And so, in January, I have another appointment to make the same request that I was just refused
The request will likely be refused again and I will be asked to supply whatever requirements they decide to assign to my case; I am now in the gray area of applications that were officially made in 2025, but being studied under new 2026 regulations.
The whims of the immigration agents have never been more powerful, and this at the same time that far-right, anti-immigrant sentiment in France is at its highest point in decades. It is unlikely I will have a new residence permit before the end of 2026, and a worst-case scenario does exist where they refuse my request, and I have to go back to the US to reapply for a new marriage visa, which would also fully reset the clock on my eligibility for nationality.
Of course, against the backdrop of immigration injustices being perpetuated by my home country, of which I am particularly conscious due to having a naturalized citizen grandmother on my mom’s side and a family group chat in which my brothers and I joke about the situations in which we do and don’t pass, my situation is fine. The worst-case scenario involves a solution. I should count myself lucky.
And yet, it has been, I observed to Thibault, hours after the tears that flowed after leaving that meeting had subsided, a very long time since I felt such an acute sense of injustice, the kind that transports you back to being unexpectedly shoved as a child on the playground and losing something valuable, like being the first in line at recess or getting the ball with the best bounce from the recess supply bin. What ignites that feeling of self-righteous injustice evolves over time, but remains rooted in the fierce frustration of losing an opportunity through no fault of your own.
You may think that what I feel was taken from me was my dignity, or perhaps a sense of humanity
But I decided to react the way I did. I dug in my heels and made the immigration agent drag me through that conversation when I could have just as easily bowed my head and accepted the new appointment for January. For better or worse, though, I am not wired for this kind of passive acceptance of disappointment, even when it relates to a situation I cannot change.
Nor do I feel like I have been dehumanized; she was, in the end, more likely than not just a bitch who supports the National Rally party.
What I do feel has been taken, at least for now, is any interest in integrating further with this country that I have made such an effort to understand and have come to call my adopted home. Rather, I feel the opposite. I see France and the French in all of their flaws as something that, increasingly, I am simply uninterested in dealing with anymore.
I am tired of being my own source of ambition, energy, and self-motivation in a place that prizes being one of the herd and falling in line. I am over the idea that this is, “the new American Dream.” The idea that moving to France facilitates an escape from how society works in the US is an illusion, in my opinion. After over seven years of living here, I can confidently say that the French live a life of ease and comfort only if they come from money (much like the US). More to the point, the Americans who live in ease and comfort here are the ones who move here with an American budget made possible by our dog-eat-dog capitalist system.
And so, faced with the scorn of an immigration agent who obstructs my right to simply continue being in her country, the angry, irrational part of me says: You can have your stupid country. I can’t vote here, and I’m losing faith that those who can will do so responsibly. At least in mine, as broken as it is, I can see ways in which I would harness my fire and do something with it.
The truth is this: Even the French understand that if you want to live comfortably in France long-term, you must seek your fortune elsewhere. This is why so many move to hustle hubs like London, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, and Montreal. Favorable tax treaties in these places support wealth building in a way that France’s domestic tax policy does not.
If you listen for it, certain French people will acknowledge a complicated truth: On an individual level, Americans do have, for better or worse, a drive that far outstrips the French. And from my perspective, having lived the majority of my 20s in France and seen how even the ability to simply purchase a two-bedroom apartment after years of working has become reserved for financially well-off outliers, this drive is increasingly a nonnegotiable in a world becoming more unaffordable by the day, whether you live in New York or Strasbourg, the Chicago suburbs or Brittany.
The next time you hear a French person say that they appreciate “American values,” this is what they’re referring to. Americans believe in setting goals that scare us, self-actualization, and celebrating wins with shots of optimism.
Give a great presentation at work? That’s awesome, you should start a business teaching others how to improve public speaking!
See your friend’s kid smash a plastic whiffle ball off a tee before he runs in the wrong direction? Damn, he’ll be one to watch once he figures out this running thing. With a hit like that, he could go pro someday!
Yes, we are culturally conditioned to covet unnecessary crap, and, if you don’t come from generational wealth that has taught you otherwise, we develop an obsession with working harder rather than a focus on working smarter, a habit that persists throughout our lives and contributes to the toxic policies created by wealthy politicians, perpetuated by the working class, that no one deserves anything they haven’t worked for, including basic social safety nets like healthcare, childcare, or dignity in old age. We have been made comatose by convenience culture, and the “American Dream” feels like a broken promise force-fed to us by billionaires these days.
All this, yet, there is something to be said of a people whose birthright as US citizens entitles us to believe and foster our ability to be whatever the hell we want, if only we’re brave, bold, and creative enough to dream it.
And this, readers, is how I know I have the 7-year itch with France
I have Internet; I subscribe to the New York Times; I watch the news. I know the US is a dumpster fire. But I am so, so tired of squashing myself into the Good Immigrant Mould, French Edition. The immigration agent may have just been a bitch, but she may also be a catalyst for a change I never saw coming, that is, the lighting of a genuine urge to live in the US, for the first time since I moved to France.
For there is another change coming, and this one we can see from far off: The rising tide of the right wing in France (and throughout the EU writ large), fueled by the same anti-immigrant, populist rhetoric unleashed largely unchecked on social media, currently causing Americans to cannibalize their own self-interest – and the very tenets of our democracy. The waves may be pummeling the US at present, but if my experience at the prefecture was any indication, the ripple effect may be just beginning. And, for everything I’ve said about the French, I believe their capacity for self-reckoning to be far greater than the Americans, which is to say, I am wary of being on this side of the Atlantic when their politicians try to gaslight them into believing only blind fealty to racist ideals will save them; the French have been there before, and I have unwavering respect for their ability to organize as a people around shared values. It’s just that I’m not sure I share these values as they’re expressed in society, with such a focus on ritual and conformity.
And so I enter 2026 braced for uncertainty of an unexpected magnitude
But I am American. I can’t help but look for the optimism in the now-blurry future. No matter how hard France tries to stamp it out of me, that instinct will always be there. So, perhaps, it’s time to take a break, the only way an American knows how: by not really taking one. I am, at this point and time, meditating seriously on what it would look like to return to the US. At the very least, with US midterm elections on the horizon and hopefully a blue wave coming down the pike (there’s that optimism again!), it feels time for this weary, accidental expat to think about it.
Resources for further reading
- Europe’s center is barely holding — and Trump plans to blow it apart – POLITICO
- Confused by French politics? Our answers to the questions you are afraid to ask
- Forecasting suggests the Republicans will lose 28 seats and the House in the 2026 midterm elections | USAPP
- More House Republicans are leaving Congress to run for governor than in decades amid frustration over ‘toxic environment’ | CNN Politics
- Immigration: a More Demanding Integration Path from 2026 Onward | Deloitte Société d’Avocats
