French Bureaucracy
On the first attempt, I spent half an hour in the Transport Bureau with the naive ambition that I might leave with what I went in for.
The aim was fairly simple; I wanted to buy a month-pass for the Tram, so that I could easily get around the city wherever and whenever my job needs me.
Entering, I head to reception and say “I want to by a month-pass.” Immediately, the receptionist told me to head to the ticket booths. No problem there.
The ensuing exchange was very Monty Pythonesque; with me going back and forth with various different bits of paper. Eventually I was given a piece of paper that informed me of all the other pieces of paper I had to find. Rather like a treasure map I suppose.
A week later, I returned with my application form, my passport, a photocopy of said passport, my housing contract, a photocopy of that, a bank identity slip, and my debit card. I got my pass in the end.
That’s my best example of la bureaucratie. In fact, obtaining a bank account was much simpler, as the procedure was simply “sign this, and this and this and this and…”
However, the classic example is the CAF, which is literally Free Money for all those who can navigate the paper labyrinth. If you say “bureaucracy” to a French person, there response will be “Have you heard of CAF?”
I’ve thought about it for a little while, but I can’t really come up with any explanation as to why such a system exists. There are plenty of made-up jobs around, of course, but it doesn’t combat unemployment, a chronic problem in France.
Still, it’s better than my experience with the Bath Students’ Union.
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Ahh, the good old days of Students’ Union forms. I once walked and campus for the sole purpose of re-doing a form to prevent something absurdly trivial from happening (or not happening, can’t remember what). That’s one and a half hours of walking from my then house.
In time I simply donated anything I’d bought under £20 because it wasn’t worth the signature chasing to get the expenses. Ironically expenses in local government are very simple to claim, I just don’t out of habit now. And another thing – it needs less of a majority to pass a £200M budget than it does to affiliate the chess & boardgame (to use a blameless example) society.
I suppose for the tram problem, some kind of national identity card scheme – the French have one I think – would be useful. Then there’d be none of this passport + contract + bank details confusion. No, wait…