Thanks - I will do today - not sure I would have got much joy yesterday!

You can't travel in Europe with a carte de sejour, only on the carte d'identité which I'm sure they only give to French citizens. For this reason alone I plan to take citizenship as soon as they'll give it to me! Or get a British ID card, who whichever I can get my hands on first ...

Can you not call the consulate to chivvy them along?

Thank you for all the replies.

It's actually the Irish consulate and they are taking their time (minimum of three weeks) I will take advantage of being grounded for another week and just hope that they get a move on even though I have paid an extra ?50 for an express service and provided evidence of impending foreign travel.

The problem was I had it witnessed (and photos signed) in the local mairie, by someone who assured me that they were adjoint to the maire, and could sign it, but the consulate disputed it and sent it back to me to have it signed by another professional. Luckily, unlike English passports, they don't insist that it is someone who knows you personally, just someone who is confident that you are who you say you are usually verified by another form of id. However apparantly French passport renewal is a whole lot easier and when I asked my GP to sign for me, they refused as they thought I was up to some funny business as they had never seen such rigmarole for a simple passport renewal. The receptionist was unbelievably rude to me! Eventually they agreed, after I cried (! Pathetic, I know, although I am 27 weeks pregnant and I have quite a bit of travel to do in the next three weeks that I am desperate to get out of the way) and I waited a couple of hours in the surgery as they wouldn't humour me with an appt.

I just thought I would avoid the rigmarole in the future by trying to Frenchyify myself a bit more with a carte d'identité or a carte de séjour. Although hopefully it will be sometime before I renew my passport again.

I renewed my passport via the British consulate by post and second what BonsoirAnna says.

Hardest thing was finding a British professional in France who had known me for over two years to identify my photo. (Although I suppose you could post your ID photos back to the UK for someone to sign.)

Oh sorry - I see what you mean, you haven't got a passport right now. Except that passport renewal is very quick at consulates - it'll be back sooner than you can get a carte de séjour, that's for sure!

You can travel internally on your passport.

Thanks - I'm in the process of getting my passport renewed at the moment and it turns out I can't take domestic flights in France without one. Air France for one won't accept foreign driving licenses for id for internal travel. You can also travel between France and England with just a carte d'identite, or so all my French friends tell me.

I will call the prefecture again about a carte de sejour.

I have a carte de séjour because I don't fancy carting around my passport all the time and paying a fortune if it gets lost/stolen.

You don't need one but I can't see that they could refuse to give you one.

I have renewed the address on mine twice in the last four years and no one looked askance at me.

Try the website of your mairie; or maybe have a look on www.service-public.fr in the étrrangers section.

sorry carte de séjour, of course, not identité.

I got a carte d'identite in 2003 without any problems. Maybe it depends where you are how they interpret the requirement.