The Continuing Saga of la Carte de Séjour...

Well, I applied for the renewal in time. The sous-préfécture states that the renewal must be done 2 months in advance, so I turned in all my papers in June.

Guess what. No Carte de Séjour in sight.
My old one expired last Saturday.

This is my fifth renewal. Every year the same damn papers.

• proof of habitation in the form of an EDF bill or France Télécom bill (the deed to the house is useless)
• copy of passport
• copy of old Carte de Séjour
• 4 pictures in black and white. No, in color. No, in black and white. No, in color. (this seems to change every year)
• copy of my Carte Vitale
• proof of income-they basically want to know I'm not going to leech off the system
• sometimes they want more proof of income in the form of an attestation from the bank
  

Somewhere, in an office out there, is a giant dossier of duplicate copies of all my information.
Or maybe they throw it away every year and start from scratch?

It will arrive someday.

This is exactly why I want to apply for citizenship in March!