Open Letter to the Consul General of the New York City French Consulate

Re: Horrified Schengen Visa Application Experiences

To: Consul General Mr. Bertrand Lortholary

Dear Mr. Lortholary

My name is Lin Tan, I am a news anchor and talk show host for a Chinese TV station based in New York City. The purpose of this letter is to share an absolutely horrified experience I recently had at your consulate, and to expose the extremely unprofessional, rude, demeaning, and malevolent behaviors exhibited by certain employees at your New York City consulate visa application department. I personally experienced these hurtful and aggravating behaviors when I tried to apply for visa at this consulate in early April 2014. It was my 3rd time applying for visa there.

Let me first start with a little background. Paris was one of my favorite cities, and that’s the primary reason why I was planning to visit Paris again for the 3rd time in the past year and half. I had an even more special reason to visit Paris this time, because I invited my sister and her newlywed husband to come to Paris to spend part of their honeymoon with me and my husband, and at the same time to celebrate my one year wedding anniversary with my husband there. We had been planning this trip for over two months, but due to the hectic nature of my job of being a talk show host that airs 4 times a week, we had to push back our appointment for Schengen Visa at your NYC consulate to April 3rd, 5 days (including a weekend) before my flight to Paris.

At my visa appointment in the morning of April 3rd, the lady at the visa department who first reviewed my applications decided to reject my application for the reason that I would be staying in Italy longer than in Paris (We were planning on staying in Paris for 3 nights, then go to Rome for 4 nights). Her attitude was extremely rude and unprofessional, and would not give me any chance for explanation. She told me to get the Visa from the Italian consulate and asked me to leave immediately. April 3rd was a Thursday, the Italian consulate does not accept visa application on Fridays, and it takes 2 business days for the Italian consulate to process a visa application. My flight was on the following Wednesday, which means I basically had no chance to get a visa in time for my trip even if by some miracle I can get a visa appointment at the Italian consulate for Monday. This lady obviously knew about these issues but refused to help me anyway. Even worse, she seemed to relish in my shock, frustration and dejection.

But the worst is yet to come.

(For comparison, in May 2012, I went to the German consulate in NYC to apply for a Schengen Visa. That time, I was planning to stay in Germany for 2 days, then Italy for 7 days. The representatives at the German consulate gave me absolutely no issues and approved my visa right away. From this, you can see that the requirement to apply for visa at the country where you plan to stay the most time is not a hard and fast rule.)

Coming out of the French consulate, I was completely deflated. I went to the Italian consulate, and representatives there told me that the only thing I could do was to send an email to make an appointment, and hope for the best.

That afternoon, when I was about to completely give up hope, I was lucky enough to score an appointment at the French consulate again the next morning due to a cancelation by another applicant. After discussing with my husband and my sister, in order to still make the trip and spend time with my family members, we decided to change our itinerary to comply with the French consulate rules. We spent the whole night and over 1000 Euro to make the necessary hotel and transportation changes, with the new itinerary staying in Paris for 5 nights, and Rome for 2 nights. We thought this should be ok now, but boy were we wrong.

I arrived at the French consulate the morning of April 4th, the second in line and full of hope. But that hope was quickly dashed not even 5 seconds into meeting the same lady from the day before. She didn’t even give me a chance to say anything before yelling out, “You were here yesterday, you could not make appointment with Italy so you come to us again”. She tossed my application package to a man, who turned out to be the head of Visa Section Sami Bouakaze, and said “I won’t accept her application”. I explained to Sami what happened, and that we decided to change our itinerary to comply with the French consulate rules. I never thought that Sami Bouakaze, being the department head and supposedly would be using better judgments and received more proper customer interfacing training, would then say to me “You put me in a difficult situation” “ Why did you change your plan, We did not ask you to change your plan… " ”If you can’t get a visa in time for your trip, that is your problem, we won’t accept your application.” He said those words in a very loud and antagonistic tone, almost yelling, even the doorman downstairs could hear him very clearly. The attitude he had was absolutely rude and appalling. I was completely horrified and embarrassed, and had no choice but to leave feeling so incredibly wronged, helpless, and hurtful.

So to summarize, they decided to reject my application for the second time, even though this time it met all the requirements for applying for a Schengen visa there.

All we had hoped was to have 4 of us getting together and spend a memorable week in Europe as a newly formed family. Why was that too much to ask, why couldn’t you accommodate this simple wish. If the time left to our travel date was still weeks away, I would have walked away without any misgivings and trying for Visa at the Italian consulate. This lady knew that I would have a very difficult time, if not impossible, to get a visa from the Italian consulate in time, but still refused to help me. Even worse, even after I jumped through the all hoops and had met all their requirements, they STILL refused to help me. Not only they had absolutely no compassion nor desire to assist people coming for their help, they actually ridicule them and relish in their miseries. All of that were completely obvious and on display by these two employees during these two trips to the French consulate.

Your consulate in a foreign country, especially in a city as diverse as New York City, is supposed to be a window into France facing the world. For many people, it would be the first opportunity for them to meet and interact with the people, and in this case, the representatives of your country. Without a doubt, the behaviors and attitudes exhibited by these employees severely damaged the image and impression of the French government, the French people, and France as whole。

I had applied for Schengen visa 4 times prior to that experience (Germany, Spain, then France twice), never had I been treated so poorly, and never had the representatives been so unprofessional, rude, and dispassionate. If they were “simply abiding by the rules”, then why did the German consulate grant me visas without any issues when German’s playing-by-the-rules rigidity is well-known all over the world? Furthermore, then why did they reject me the second time when I already complied with their “rules”? Who said travel plans can’t change? The answer is that it was not about the rules, it was about the egos and power trips of these two employees at your consulate getting in the way of helping others. Instead of using their positions to genuinely help travelers who are looking to spend a nice time in your country, they abused their power to deny legitimate visa application and built their little power trip and satisfactions upon the miseries and dejections of others. It was absolutely cynical and even borderline sinister. Fair or not, the behaviors of employees at your consulate reflect the image and attitudes of your whole country for the people who face them, is this truly the image you want to project to the world travelers who are planning to visit your country?

The completely unacceptable behaviors of these two employees at your consulate left an extremely hurtful and negative impression in me, not just about them, but also about France overall if this is the type of people you choose to put there and face the world. I don’t ever have any desire to step into that visa office again, even at the cost of possibly never seeing one of my favorite cities in the future, because I can’t bear to see the faces of these two individuals. I sincerely hope my experiences won’t be repeated by others who will be applying for visa at your NYC consulate, and hope the few bad apples there won’t ruin the impression of France as a country to other world travelers.

I plan to share this horrible experience with my personal friends, my audiences，with all my media friends in the United States and in China.

Also，I am planning to send this mail to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France.

Thank you for your time!

(If you are curious, I ended up still making the trip because some nice person at the Italian consulate saw my email and immediately arranged for me to come in on that Friday to submit my application even though they typically don’t accept visa applications on Fridays. I picked up my visa on April 8th, the day before my flight to Paris. That’s the difference between those who are willing to help, and those who are not.)

Lin Tan
April 9th 2014