At the end of the Council of Ministers, Gabriel Attal detailed the measures to facilitate the rapid processing of renewal requests.
The deadlines for having an appointment at the town hall are:an average of 65 days in France today, compared to 12 days a year ago“, recalled the government spokesperson. A situation that forced the government to react by putting in place “an emergency plan“. In concrete terms, 400 devices for collecting equipment, enabling users to record their request for identity card or passport, will be deployed in town halls. The executive hopes to be able to deal with “500,000 more requests per week“Said Gabriel Attal. At the same time, 160 new agents have been hired since the start of 2022 in order to shorten instruction and production times, i.e. a 30% increase in the workforce.
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If these measures should allow a return to normal in the short term, the government has also provided for certain derogations for the most urgent cases. Thus requests for renewal for professional reasons will be given priority. Similarly, to prevent a single student or learner driver from failing:identity cards and passports expired less than 5 years ago will be valid for the exams in May and June as well as to take the driving license exam“, reassured Gabriel Attal.
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Rattrapage post-Covid
This explosion in lead times is the result of the exceptional increase in renewal requests. This is primarily a post-Covid catch-up effect. During the two years of the epidemic, many identity cards and passports expired, without the owners trying to change them. A non-renewal which would concern approximately 1.3 million titles according to the director general of the ANTS (National Agency for Secure Titles), Anne-Gaëlle Baudouin.
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To this must be added the additional demands, caused by Brexit (a passport is now necessary to go to the United Kingdom), or the attractiveness effect of the new identity card, deployed last year.
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