Moving to France: A 10-Step Guide for Scholarship holders

This step applies only to those heading to Paris. Due to the large volume of students who arrive in Paris for each academic year, you will only receive your accommodation upon arrival. The system is, therefore, ‘first come first served’. Whilst the idea of immigrating to a country without knowing where you will live is intimidating, there are some things you can do to increase your odds of getting an accommodation close to your university. For my meeting, I was presented a choice of four options: a smaller room without a bathroom and further away, a very large (more expensive) studio and a smaller studio closer to my university – which was in fact in the very building where my meeting took place. 

Given that Paris is a larger city, I based most of my choice on the distance of each accommodation to where I would need to be going each day. To do this, my first recommendation is to simply ask your officer to check the distance (by foot, or by public transport) of each address from your university on their computer. This was extremely useful for me in making my final decision. If you can, download the app “citymapper” before, and ask if you can connect to their Wi-Fi if you’d like to check for yourself. Before your meeting, try to make a mental list of priorities regarding your accommodation: is having your own bathroom and kitchenette essential to you? Or would you rather live closer to where you will be studying in a more basic style room? What is your budget and price range? As you will need to make a decision on the spot, it’s best to come as prepared as possible with these issues in mind. 

 → Home insurance: 

Important: you will not be allowed to move into your room without home insurance. I did not know this on arrival, so I had to purchase one online and on the spot with the help of my CROUS officer. Whilst I am glad that he offered to help, I later found out that there were a number of banks who had special deals with my university and who offered home insurance for free, or for only one euro a year. It is therefore worthwhile to check on this beforehand if possible. 

Once you have your accommodation settled, try to lodge an application for the Aide personnalisée au logement (APL) from the Caisse d'allocations familiales (CAF) as soon as possible. This is a monthly support grant applicable to any student studying in France to help pay their rent. If you are staying in a CROUS residence, you should be eligible to receive this grant.  If you have opted for private accommodation, this will depend on your landlord, as they will need to provide you with some paperwork for your application and not all landlords are willing to do this. The amount you receive will vary on a number of factors and you will need to complete an online simulation which will ask a series of questions about your accommodation and circumstances. 

The entire website and process (which includes some pretty complicated questions) is in French, so if you do not yet speak the language fluently it will be best to find a French-speaking person to help you. During the first week of university, the CAF also sent a number of representatives to assist students throughout the day in person, so try to ask your university if anything similar might be organized beforehand if you can’t find a French friend to help you. Try to do this as soon as possible, as the CAF can take months to process applications due to the high demand on the system. What is great, however, is that they will back-pay you from the date that you applied – so if you apply in August and only begin to receive your payments in November, you will receive all the payments you have been owed since the first month after application in one lump sum. 

Important: You will not be able to open a bank account without a French phone number, proof of accommodation and your passport.  It is therefore impossible to complete this step without first having completed step 2 and 3. If you do not speak French, try to get a friend who does to come along with you. A few people I know who don’t speak it found branches where the staff were able to complete the entire process in English, so this is also possible. I chose my bank based on the fact that my university had a partnership with them, which meant that I got 100 Euros simply for signing up, along with a few other perks. It is really worthwhile finding out if your university has anything similar! If the information is not available on your university website, try e-mailing your administrative office to check. 

Something else worth noting is that you will probably not receive your debit card on the spot, as you would in many South African banks. They will most likely send it to you by post, along with your pin code. More generally, I would add that post is something that is relied on more in France than South Africa, so this is something you will need to get used to. In my case, it took about a week to get my bank card, so try to remember this when planning your budget for the first few weeks on arrival.  

In order to stay in France, you will need to send in some documentation to the immigration office and attend a meeting with them. All the required information to do this will be provided to you by the French consulate when you receive your student visa in South Africa before your departure. You will receive the date of your appointment along with further instructions via e-mail about three weeks after mailing them the required documents. I highly recommend you send the documentation via registered mail with a ‘recommandé avec accusé de récéption’ to ensure that nothing goes wrong/gets lost (a detailed description on how to do this can be found here). The meeting itself is not something to stress about – in my case I simply went in, gave them my proof of address and passport, and received my residency permit on the spot (this will be stuck by them into the passport). As long as you closely follow all the instructions provided to you, you should be fine. 

This is a step that you can begin before even leaving your home town in South Africa. For my university, I found a Facebook group online for all the incoming Master’s students for the 2017-2018 year. This group quickly became very big and when everyone began to arrive in Paris, was soon to become the main way that everyone made plans to meet one another and go out together. I highly recommend checking to see if your university has anything similar – particularly if you will arrive a few days before classes begin and don’t know anyone in your city (yet!). Once classes begin, try to join some student organisations. My university had a huge selection of these on offer spanning a vast range of topics, activities and sports – which I have found to be a great way to meet new people and deepen my involvement with the university community.