Carte Vitale

Once you get to France and start looking into doctors and healthcare, you'll start hearing the words carte vitale bandied about a lot. For the uninitiated, it's sort of like an EHIC card but specific to France and people who live there. You need this to register with a doctor (although I believe they will temporarily accept things like your French social security number & other paperwork while you get hold of the carte vitale) and, the good thing is, you don't have to be French or a naturalised citizen to get one, and they last your entire lifetime. So even if you're on your year abroad, and you don't really intend to move back to France again in the future, it's still worth doing as it's not too much effort (compared to some of the other hurdles you have to jump) and you never know what the future holds.

I have to be honest here, though I did obtain a carte vitale, I never registered with a doctor (my time came to an end before it reached the top of my to-do list) and I can't take you all the way through the process step by step like I have in my other posts, as (for once!!) British Council and its French counterpart actually did some of the bureaucratic leg-work for me. However, I can tell you how it happened for me, in case you too are doing British Council, and I can try and fill in some of the gaps for you if you're not.

To get your carte vitale you're going to need a French social security number. If you're doing British Council, you're in luck, as you will be provided with this at your first big meeting in early October. This was the one and only time something I really needed was handed to me rather than me sacrificing my sanity for it - unfortunately, it means I can't tell you how to get a social security number. A quick Google seems to say that if you're being employed by a French company, they will carry out the boring paperwork part for you, and if you're a student, you need to register online and upload the necessary documents (I believe on a website called ameli.fr).

Then - as is presumably also the case if you're being employed in France - I was sent a form that I had to fill out, attach a passport-style photo of me to, and send back, to eventually receive my carte vitale in the post. Evidently this implies having passport-style photos of you to hand - so either before or after you arrive in France, if you see a photobooth I'd recommend using it, as there are times like this when it's really useful to just have photos to hand.

(Bonus tip - all these documents were being sent to me at the school where I was working, and no one told me about this for ages. If you are doing British Council, ask straight away if you have your own pigeon-hole (case / casier) as they might not tell you, and some of these forms are time-sensitive.)

If you are a student and having to do all this yourself, don't worry, I know you can also do an online carte vitale application, again on the website ameli.fr. You will need to create an account with them, then put in your application via their portal, and I imagine you will eventually receive the card in the post.

Hopefully this has been useful even though it is not something I have lots and lots of experience with; I thought it was still worth touching on just to make you aware of it.

Emily