You settled in France after Brexit, built a life here, and now want your husband, wife, partner or children to join you. Since 1 January 2021, British citizens are third-country nationals, which means your family cannot simply move with you: they need the right visa, the right residence card (carte de séjour, the permit that authorises a foreigner to live in France), and a file capable of surviving the scrutiny of the préfet (the State representative in each département who decides on residence applications). Get the route wrong and you lose months; get the evidence wrong and you receive a refusal that can be accompanied by an order to leave France.

French law offers two main doors. The first is regroupement familial (family reunification in the strict legal sense): a British resident sponsors named relatives from abroad after at least eighteen months in France, proving stable resources and suitable housing. The second is the carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention “vie privée et familiale” (the temporary residence card endorsed “private and family life”), which covers spouses of French nationals, parents of French children, and anyone whose family ties in France are so strong that refusing residence would breach their right to private and family life. This article explains both routes in practical detail, the exact proofs the administration expects, and what to do when the answer is no: administrative appeals, the administrative court (tribunal administratif, the first-instance court for challenging administrative decisions), and how to fight an obligation de quitter le territoire français (OQTF, the order requiring a foreigner to leave French territory). Every French term is explained at first use, and every decisive rule is quoted from the official text.

I. Bringing Your Spouse and Children to France After Brexit: Regroupement Familial or a Vie Privée et Familiale Card

A. Regroupement Familial: Eighteen Months, Stable Resources and a Flat the Mairie Must Approve

Regroupement familial is the procedure by which a foreigner lawfully settled in France asks for named members of his or her family, still living abroad, to be authorised to join. For a British sponsor in the post-Brexit world, it is the default route when the spouse or partner is also British (or of another non-EU nationality) and the whole family intends to live in France. Three cumulative pillars support every application: length of prior residence, resources, and housing. A fourth, quieter condition — respect for the essential principles of family life in France — allows the préfet to refuse files tainted by polygamy, forced marriage or the mutilation of a child, and it should be kept in mind even in ordinary cases.

The waiting condition is fixed by statute. Article L. 434-2 of the CESEDA (the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile, the code governing entry and residence of foreigners, hereafter CESEDA) provides: “L’étranger qui séjourne régulièrement en France depuis au moins dix-huit mois, sous couvert d’un des titres d’une durée de validité d’au moins un an prévus par le présent code ou par des conventions internationales, peut demander à bénéficier de son droit à être rejoint, au titre du regroupement familial”. In plain English: you must have lived lawfully in France for at least eighteen months under a permit valid for one year or more. A British holder of a Withdrawal Agreement residence card (the carte de séjour Article 50 TUE issued under the EU–UK Withdrawal Agreement), a multi-year carte de séjour pluriannuelle (the multi-year residence card), or a ten-year carte de résident (resident card) satisfies this test once the eighteen months are complete. Time spent merely visiting, or under a short-stay Schengen stamp, does not count. The English-language service-public.fr page on regroupement familial confirms the eighteen-month rule and lists the qualifying permits, and the service-public.fr guide to applying for family reunification (demande de regroupement familial) describes each step of the file.

Whom can you sponsor? Article L. 434-1 of the CESEDA states the principle: “Le regroupement familial est sollicité pour l’ensemble des personnes désignées aux articles L. 434-2 à L. 434-4. Un regroupement partiel peut toutefois être autorisé pour des motifs tenant à l’intérêt des enfants.” The sponsor therefore applies for the whole eligible family at once — spouse aged at least eighteen, and minor children — with partial reunification possible only where the children’s interests justify it. Two refinements matter for British blended families. Article L. 434-3 of the CESEDA extends the procedure to the sponsor’s minor children, and to the spouse’s minor children, where parentage (“filiation”, the legal parent–child link) is established with respect to only one of them, or where the other parent has died or been deprived of parental rights. Article L. 434-4 of the CESEDA covers children entrusted to one parent by a foreign court decision, provided a copy of that decision and the other parent’s written permission for the child to come to France are produced. British divorce orders, parental-responsibility agreements and deeds of guardianship therefore need to be translated, complete and consistent before the file is lodged: an English child arrangements order that is ambiguous about who may remove the child from the jurisdiction will stall the case. Conversely, Article L. 434-6 of the CESEDA allows a relative to be excluded where his or her presence would threaten public order (“ordre public”, the French concept of fundamental public safety and order), where the person suffers from a disease listed in the International Health Regulations, or where the person already lives in France — regroupement is for bringing people in, not for regularising someone already here.

Resources are the ground on which most British files succeed or fail. Article L. 434-7 of the CESEDA sets the test: “L’étranger qui en fait la demande est autorisé à être rejoint au titre du regroupement familial s’il remplit les conditions suivantes : 1° Il justifie de ressources stables et suffisantes pour subvenir aux besoins de sa famille ; 2° Il dispose ou disposera à la date d’arrivée de sa famille en France d’un logement considéré comme normal pour une famille comparable vivant dans la même région géographique”. The implementing rule converts “sufficient” into figures. Article R. 434-4 of the CESEDA provides that “les ressources du demandeur et de son conjoint qui alimenteront de façon stable le budget de la famille sont appréciées sur une période de douze mois par référence à la moyenne mensuelle du salaire minimum de croissance au cours de cette période”. In practice the administration averages the household’s stable income over the previous twelve months against the monthly salaire minimum de croissance (SMIC, the statutory national minimum wage): roughly one SMIC for a family of two or three, plus one-tenth for four or five people, plus one-fifth above that. Only stable income counts — wages on permanent contracts (contrats à durée indéterminée), established self-employed earnings, pensions. British sponsors should note three traps. First, fluctuating freelance or dividend income from a UK limited company must be shown to feed the household budget stably over twelve months; a single good quarter is not enough. Second, family benefits (prestations familiales) and the basic insertion income are disregarded, so they cannot top up an otherwise thin file. Third, where the sponsor’s spouse already works in France, both incomes may be counted — but that presupposes the spouse is already here lawfully, which is rarely the case in a regroupement scenario. Payslips, tax notices (avis d’imposition), employment contracts and bank statements covering the full twelve months are therefore the backbone of the file.

Housing is examined just as rigorously. The flat or house must be “normal” for a comparable family in the same area and must meet health, safety and equipment standards, with minimum floor areas that depend on the housing zone (tighter in Paris and the inner suburbs, more generous elsewhere). The verification is concrete: the file is lodged with the Office français de l’immigration et de l’intégration (OFII, the public office for immigration and integration), which tasks the mairie (the town hall) with checking the dwelling. Article R. 434-7 of the CESEDA organises the circuit: “L’étranger fait sa demande auprès des services de l’Office français de l’immigration et de l’intégration. Le préfet territorialement compétent ou, à Paris, le préfet de police en est immédiatement informé.” The mairie has two months to give a reasoned opinion after visiting or examining the premises; silence counts as favourable. The decision itself belongs to the préfet — in Paris, the préfet de police (the Prefect of Police, who exercises residence-permit powers in the capital) — who must notify it within six months of the complete file reaching the OFII. No answer within six months is an implied refusal (refus implicite), which can itself be challenged.

Two practical lessons emerge from the case law. First, housing is judged at the date of the préfet’s decision, and documentary proof wins. In a judgment of 17 October 2025, the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal (cour administrative d’appel, the court hearing appeals against first-instance administrative judgments) rejected a prefect’s challenge to a tribunal judgment that had annulled a refusal of regroupement: CAA Paris, 6th chamber, 17 October 2025, No. 25PA02470. The court held: “Il ressort des pièces du dossier, notamment du bail qu’il a conclu le 1er novembre 2022, des quittances de loyers, de l’attestation du propriétaire du logement et des nombreuses autres pièces qu’il a produites, que M. D…, qui habitait jusqu’alors dans un studio de 30 m2, disposait à la date de la décision du préfet de Seine-et-Marne, d’un appartement de 68m2 dont il n’est pas contesté qu’il satisfaisait aux conditions légales et réglementaires pour le logement de trois personnes.” The message for British sponsors is direct: sign the bigger lease before the decision, keep every rent receipt, obtain a written statement from the landlord, and make sure the papers show the dwelling’s size and occupancy plainly. The operative part follows: “La requête du préfet de Seine-et-Marne est rejetée.” Second, once authorised, the family members apply for long-stay visas at the French consulate covering their place of residence, undergo OFII medical and reception examinations, and receive residence cards in France. The British sponsor’s own Withdrawal Agreement or multi-year card is unaffected, but the whole timetable — OFII instruction, mairie opinion, prefectural decision, consular visas — commonly runs the better part of a year, so files should be lodged as soon as the eighteen-month threshold is met rather than on the eve of a school term.

B. When Regroupement Does Not Fit: Spouse of a French National, Parent of a French Child, and the General Private-Life Card

Regroupement is not the only door, and for many British families it is not the right one. Where the spouse is French, where a child is French, or where family life in France is already a fact, the carte de séjour temporaire “vie privée et familiale” offers a faster, more protective route that does not require eighteen months of prior residence or a minimum income. The British partner of a French citizen should almost always look here first.

The flagship case is marriage to a French national. Article L. 423-1 of the CESEDA provides: “L’étranger marié avec un ressortissant français, se voit délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention “vie privée et familiale” d’une durée d’un an lorsque les conditions suivantes sont réunies : 1° La communauté de vie n’a pas cessé depuis le mariage ; 2° Le conjoint a conservé la nationalité française”. Three conditions, each capable of destroying the file if neglected: a genuine continuing shared life (communauté de vie, the real marital cohabitation the administration verifies through joint address, joint tax returns, bills and testimony), the French spouse’s retained nationality, and — where the wedding took place abroad, as many Anglo-French marriages celebrated in England are — prior transcription of the marriage onto the French civil-status registers (transcription sur les registres de l’état civil français). A Gretna Green or London register-office marriage that was never transcribed will block the card until the consular paperwork is complete. A useful variant covers Britons who entered lawfully and married in France: Article L. 423-2 of the CESEDA states: “L’étranger, entré régulièrement et marié en France avec un ressortissant français avec lequel il justifie d’une vie commune et effective de six mois en France, se voit délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention “vie privée et familiale” d’une durée d’un an. La condition prévue à l’article L. 412-1 n’est pas opposable.” The final sentence matters enormously: the long-stay visa normally required for a first card (the rule in Article L. 412-1 of the CESEDA) cannot be held against this applicant. A British visitor who lawfully entered, married in a French mairie, and can show six months of real shared life in France is entitled to the card without returning to London for a visa.

Parents of French children enjoy comparable protection. Article L. 423-7 of the CESEDA provides: “L’étranger qui est père ou mère d’un enfant français mineur résidant en France et qui établit contribuer effectivement à l’entretien et à l’éducation de l’enfant dans les conditions prévues par l’article 371-2 du code civil, depuis la naissance de celui-ci ou depuis au moins deux ans, se voit délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention “vie privée et familiale” d’une durée d’un an, sans que soit opposable la condition prévue à l’article L. 412-1.” For a British father or mother whose child is French — typically through the other French parent — the test is effective contribution to the child’s maintenance and education since birth or for at least two years, assessed under Article 371-2 of the Civil Code (the provision defining parental maintenance duties). School certificates, child-maintenance payments, medical and school correspondence in the parent’s name, and evidence of daily involvement all count; a purely financial contribution made from London without any presence in the child’s life will not. Here again the long-stay visa requirement is expressly waived.

Beyond these named categories sits the general safety net of Article L. 423-23 of the CESEDA: “L’étranger qui n’entre pas dans les catégories prévues aux articles L. 423-1, L. 423-7, L. 423-14, L. 423-15, L. 423-21 et L. 423-22 ou dans celles qui ouvrent droit au regroupement familial, et qui dispose de liens personnels et familiaux en France tels que le refus d’autoriser son séjour porterait à son droit au respect de sa vie privée et familiale une atteinte disproportionnée au regard des motifs du refus, se voit délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention “vie privée et familiale” d’une durée d’un an, sans que soit opposable la condition prévue à l’article L. 412-1. Les liens mentionnés au premier alinéa sont appréciés notamment au regard de leur intensité, de leur ancienneté et de leur stabilité, des conditions d’existence de l’étranger, de son insertion dans la société française ainsi que de la nature de ses liens avec sa famille restée dans son pays d’origine. L’insertion de l’étranger dans la société française est évaluée en tenant compte notamment de sa connaissance des valeurs de la République.” This is the domestic expression of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to respect for private and family life): where refusal would strike disproportionately at genuine ties — their intensity, age, stability, the applicant’s integration and knowledge of the Republic’s values — the card must issue. British readers in civil partnerships or long unmarried cohabitation (concubinage, living together without marriage or civil pact; or a Pacte civil de solidarité, PACS, the French registered partnership, concluded with a French partner) who fall outside regroupement should plead this provision with a thick evidential file: length of cohabitation, joint children, integration through work, language and community life, and the weakness of remaining ties to the United Kingdom. The Government’s living in France guide for British nationals usefully summarises the residence landscape from the UK side, but the French-law test above is what the préfet applies.

Choosing between the doors is therefore a strategic decision. Regroupement suits the British couple or family where the sponsor is established and the relatives are still in the United Kingdom; it is methodical, document-heavy and slow. The vie privée et familiale card suits mixed Franco-British households and parents of French children; it is faster and needs no income threshold, but it demands proof of genuine shared life or genuine parental contribution. Claiming both in parallel is possible in some configurations, but each file must be coherent on its own: contradictory statements about where the family actually lives will sink both. One further fallback exists for cases that fit neither box. Article L. 435-1 of the CESEDA allows admission on humanitarian grounds or for exceptional reasons (admission exceptionnelle au séjour): “L’étranger dont l’admission au séjour répond à des considérations humanitaires ou se justifie au regard des motifs exceptionnels qu’il fait valoir peut se voir délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire” — including, expressly, a vie privée et familiale card — again without the long-stay visa being opposable. It is discretionary rather than a right, yet for a British family member with years of unbroken presence and deep roots, it can rescue a file that regroupement cannot carry.

II. When the Préfet Says No: Reading the Refusal, Appealing, and Defeating an OQTF

A. The Refusal Letter Is the Start of the Case, Not the End: Explicit and Implied Refusals, Appeals and the Administrative Court

A refusal arrives either as a reasoned letter or as silence. An explicit refusal (refus explicite) must state its legal basis and factual reasons; in regroupement the préfet must decide within six months of the complete OFII file, and a refusal must be reasoned. Silence for six months is an implied refusal (refus implicite) with the same legal effect. The first task is therefore forensic: identify exactly which condition the administration says is unmet — resources, housing, eighteen months, genuineness of the marriage, transcription, parental contribution — and test that finding against the file as it stood at the decision date, because that is the date at which the court will judge legality.

The classic battlegrounds are predictable. On resources, refusals typically allege instability: agency work (intérim), short contracts, UK-source income that cannot be shown feeding the household steadily. The answer is twelve months of bank statements, contracts, employer attestations and tax notices demonstrating continuity, plus evidence that any dip was temporary and has been cured. On housing, refusals allege overcrowding or unfitness; the answer follows the lesson of the Paris court of appeal quoted above — a signed lease for larger premises, rent receipts, the landlord’s attestation and photographs proving the dwelling’s size and equipment. On marriage-based vie privée et familiale cards, the recurrent allegation is the end of shared life. A 2021 Paris ruling is instructive precisely because the foreigner lost: the prefect had relied on the French wife’s police report (main courante, the recorded statement) that her husband had left the matrimonial home, and the court upheld the non-renewal. CAA Paris, 5th chamber, 10 June 2021, No. 20PA02988 recalled the governing text — “Sauf si sa présence constitue une menace pour l’ordre public, la carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention “vie privée et familiale” est délivrée de plein droit : (…) 4° A l’étranger ne vivant pas en état de polygamie, marié avec un ressortissant de nationalité française, à condition que la communauté de vie n’ait pas cessé depuis le mariage, que le conjoint ait conservé la nationalité française” — and found that the applicant brought “aucun élément de nature à justifier d’une communauté de vie effective à la date de l’arrêté attaqué”. The lesson cuts both ways: the administration must prove cessation with concrete material, but once it does, the foreigner who produces nothing loses. British spouses should therefore maintain continuous joint proofs — joint tax declarations, joint utility bills, joint bank account, correspondence at the shared address, attestations from relatives — so that a separation alleged on thin evidence can be rebutted. Note also the court’s closing hint: a spouse whose shared life genuinely resumes may lodge a fresh application rather than relitigating the old one.

Remedies run on strict clocks. The gracious appeal (recours gracieux, the request asking the authority that decided to reconsider) goes back to the préfet; the hierarchical appeal (recours hiérarchique, the appeal to the superior authority) goes to the Minister of the Interior. Either can accompany — but should never replace without advice — the contentious appeal (recours contentieux, the court claim) before the territorially competent tribunal administratif. The ordinary deadline is two months from notification of an explicit refusal, or from the birth of an implied refusal, under the general rules of the Code of Administrative Justice. The claim asks the court to annul the refusal and, crucially, to order the administration to issue the visa authorisation or the card (injonction, the court order compelling the administration to act), if necessary under penalty (astreinte, the daily fine for non-compliance). Pleadings should combine legality arguments (error of fact, error of law, misreading of the resource or housing evidence, breach of Article 8 reasoning) with an updated evidential file showing that any curable defect — a new lease, a permanent contract, transcribed marriage — has since been fixed. Where the file is strong, judges do not hesitate: the Melun tribunal annulled the Seine-et-Marne refusal and ordered regroupement for the wife and minor daughter, and the Paris court of appeal confirmed, adding costs against the State under Article L. 761-1 of the Code of Administrative Justice. Costs awards do not make the applicant rich, but they signal a file the administration should never have refused.

B. The OQTF Arriving With the Refusal: Voluntary Departure, Challenge Deadlines and the Paris and Ile-de-France Practicalities

The most frightening envelope is the one pairing a residence refusal with an obligation de quitter le territoire français. Article L. 611-1 of the CESEDA lists the cases, and the relevant one is plain: “L’autorité administrative peut obliger un étranger à quitter le territoire français lorsqu’il se trouve dans les cas suivants”, including “3° L’étranger s’est vu refuser la délivrance d’un titre de séjour, le renouvellement du titre de séjour”. A British family member refused a vie privée et familiale card may therefore be ordered to leave, usually with thirty days for voluntary departure (délai de départ volontaire), sometimes without delay where the administration alleges fraud, threat to public order or abuse. The OQTF fixes a country of return (pays de renvoi, normally the United Kingdom for a British national) and may carry a re-entry ban (interdiction de retour sur le territoire français, the multi-year ban on coming back).

Challenge is possible but the procedure is accelerated and unforgiving. Article L. 614-1 of the CESEDA provides that “La décision portant obligation de quitter le territoire français ainsi que la décision relative au séjour, la décision relative au délai de départ volontaire et l’interdiction de retour sur le territoire français qui l’accompagnent, le cas échéant, peuvent être contestées devant le tribunal administratif”. In the standard configuration — refusal plus OQTF with thirty days — a single claim contests the whole package within thirty days, and the claim suspends removal until the court rules. Where no voluntary period was granted, the deadline collapses to days and detention or house arrest may follow; counsel must be instructed the same day. Grounds mirror the residence case with additions specific to removal: insufficient reasoning (défaut de motivation), failure to examine the personal situation, breach of Article 8 of the European Convention, error over the country of return, and disproportionality of any re-entry ban. A spouse of a French national or a parent of a French child whose shared life or parental contribution is real will plead Article 8 front and centre, because removing such a person to Britain while the French family remains in France is precisely the disproportion the statute and the Convention forbid. Interim relief exists: the emergency suspension (référé-suspension, the urgent application asking the judge to freeze the decision) can halt an OQTF’s enforcement where urgency and serious doubt about legality are shown.

For readers in Paris and the Ile-de-France, four practical points deserve emphasis. First, competence: as Article R. 434-7 of the CESEDA confirms, in Paris the decision-maker is the préfet de police, not an ordinary departmental prefect, and files follow Paris-specific counters and online appointments; using the wrong channel loses weeks. Second, housing scrutiny is fiercest in the capital: small Parisian studios routinely fail the minimum-area test for a couple with a child, so many British sponsors secure a larger flat in the inner suburbs (petite couronne, the departments immediately surrounding Paris) before applying, with the lease and floor-area evidence to prove it. Third, litigation goes to the Paris, Melun, Cergy-Pontoise or Versailles tribunals depending on residence, all of them heavy-volume courts where a well-ordered, paginated, translated file earns attention and a chaotic one does not. Fourth, consular reality: once regroupement is authorised, the visa stage runs through the French consulate in London, whose appointments and document requirements should be checked early, because an authorisation is not open-ended and delays at that stage can force the family to restart medical examinations.

Two final cautions complete the picture. Polygamy bars both routes: the vie privée et familiale card for spouses requires a foreigner “ne vivant pas en état de polygamie”, and regroupement excludes a second spouse entirely — British sponsors with complex marital histories involving valid English divorces should produce the decrees absolute and French-law opinions on their recognition rather than hoping the question will not be asked. And criminality changes everything: a threat to public order defeats even “as of right” (de plein droit, the automatic entitlement subject only to stated exceptions) cards, so any conviction or pending prosecution must be disclosed to counsel early, not discovered by the prefecture first.

Conclusion

A British family separated by the Channel after Brexit is not without remedies, but success belongs to the file that matches its route. Where the sponsor is established and the family waits in Britain, regroupement familial rewards eighteen months of lawful residence, twelve months of stable SMIC-level resources, and a dwelling the mairie can approve — each proved with leases, receipts, payslips and tax notices rather than assertions. Where the household is Franco-British, or a French child anchors it, the vie privée et familiale card asks different questions — continuing shared life, transcribed marriage, genuine parental contribution, or ties so deep that refusal would breach Article 8 — and answers them without income thresholds or prior residence. Refusals, whether reasoned letters or six months of silence, open appeals to the préfet, the Minister and above all the tribunal administratif, which can annul and order issue; an accompanying OQTF must be challenged within its short deadline, with suspension of removal while the court decides. For help mapping these routes onto a particular household, readers may consult the firm’s guide to which long-stay visa and which carte de séjour a British newcomer needs. Prepared early, evidenced thickly and challenged promptly, a family-reunion file turns Brexit’s third-country barrier from a wall back into a door.