Has your passport expired? For Augustians, it may not be too late
If you leave in August, you may still have a chance to get your sesame ready for the holidays. With 2,100 additional appointments each week until September, the town hall of Toulouse wants to do its utmost to allow the inhabitants to renew their passport as soon as possible or identity card.
Ten new counters have just opened, at the Roseraie Citizenship Center (6), at the Capitole (2), at the Minimes (1) and at the Pont des Demoiselles district town hall (1). Once the appointment has been made, however, you have to wait for the title to be created by the prefecture. And with the required delays, “it takes a maximum of seven weeks, specifies the municipality, compared to three in normal times. “.
Shérazade, delighted, leaves her meeting at the Roseraie. “Yesterday, I realized that my passport was about to expire,” says this 37-year-old Toulouse woman. I made an appointment on www.montoulouse.fr on the earliest available date, September 23. I was rather jaded. But this morning, I came back to the site and banco, there was a slot at 11:40 am! » Indeed, the town hall explains that « do not hesitate to consult the site around 8:45 am – 9 am. We have a lot of withdrawals: the schedule is updated every morning with sometimes the possibility of having a slot the same day. » Appointments can also be made by telephone at 05.31.22.90.00.
A national emergency plan following the pandemic
According to the National Agency for Secure Documents, more than a million identity cards and passports were not renewed over the 2020-2021 period, causing congestion at the end of the pandemic. In response, the state has launched a temporary “emergency plan” which aims to create 50,000 additional titles per week, in order to return to normal by September. In Occitania, only the municipalities of Toulouse and Béziers responded to the call, by increasing the number of counters.
But doesn’t the device arrive a bit late? “We couldn’t make it worse before the state made it official,” explains Gnadang Ousmane, municipal councilor in charge of administrative formalities. The special machines that take the fingerprints are sent to us by the State under high security: we have just received them”.
To roll out the plan as quickly as possible, the town hall has been recruited and trained contract agents. Among them, many students, like Léa, 24, in a bachelor’s degree in events. “It’s a change from checkout to supermarkets! And then I contribute so that people can go on vacation, ”rejoices the young woman. Tuesday morning, she notably received Ahlen, 23, who hopes to be able to go on a trip to Morocco in mid-August. Sure fingers crossed for her.