Identity card: how to shorten deadlines

Three or four months to renew your passport! Add another month for production and delivery, that’s a four to five month wait…. At this rate, the desire to fly can clip its wings. Faced with the headache of making appointments in town halls, the French administration is innovating and accelerating to decongest its services overloaded with requests for the renewal of identity documents. After Covid-19, a phenomenon arose where many French people found themselves in possession of securities that expired during periods of confinement. New requests then exploded in a few months to the displeasure of thousands of citizens forced to cancel their trips. Added to this phenomenon are candidates for competitions or exams who are asked for an identity card, such as bank loan applicants…

500 new data collection devices

Mobilized on the file, the Ministry of the Interior and Overseas and the National Agency for Document Security (ANTS) are installing 500 new data collection devices in town halls, which benefit from an additional 20 million euros. In addition, new personnel will be recruited in the competence centers and securities resources (in the prefectures), state services announce. Today there are 4,000 digital consultants in the area, through digital points installed in the prefectures and sub-prefectures. An emergency plan already implemented in 2022 which made it possible to implement 600 new data collection devices in France with a state allocation of 10 million euros to financially support the municipalities. In 2022, the increase in personnel and the creation of temporary reception centers to relieve the very high pressure services made it possible to reduce delays from 77 days to 50 days, while issuing 12.1 million permits, compared to 9, 5 million in 2019.

In February, more than 1 million appointments were offered in France

“Today, the issuance of an appointment for a passport or national identity card should be less than 30 days,” state services indicate. “Between February 2022 and February 2023, the total number of open appointments in the month increased by 41% for all titles, and even by 70% for passports, on which we are experiencing the greatest tensions. Thus, in February 2023, 1.2 million appointments were offered to our fellow citizens, and the number of open appointments continues to increase week by week ”. In Toulouse, the waiting time for an appointment is around three months. This is what the Minister of Territorial Communities and Rurality, Dominique Faure recently observed, while visiting the reception system of the town hall of the Pont-des-Demoiselles district. “2,500 town halls in France have been equipped with 5,500 reception devices, an increase of 20% compared to January 1, 2022,” said Anne-Gaelle Baudouin-Clerc, director of ANTS, who accompanied the minister. “The approaching summer holidays and the need to travel after the health crisis have created some inconvenience.

“We’re already at about 110 meetings a day! »

Especially since Toulouse also has many Airbus employees who travel back and forth to England, a destination that requires having a valid passport (valid for 10 years), “explains Gnadang Ousmane, Toulouse’s elected representative in charge of administrative formalities and In the Roseraie district of Toulouse, the temporary reception center opens from April 3 to July 2023. “Eight people have been recruited and trained to lower the tension, adds the elected official. We are already at around 110 meetings a day ! “. The new identity card with more practical and attractive features because it is smaller also encourages many French people to renew it, which increases waiting times. Every year, around 25 million ID cards, passports and driving licenses leave the National Printing Office, an ultra-secure site where securities are produced.