You spent your first year in France on a one-year carte de séjour (residence permit): salarié, vie privée et familiale, visiteur, or another mention. Renewal season is approaching, and the préfecture (the local office of the State that issues residence permits, headed by the préfet) may offer you something better than another one-year card: the carte de séjour pluriannuelle, the multi-year residence permit valid for four years. A few years later comes the next prize, the carte de résident, the ten-year resident card, which frees you from frequent renewals and proves durable settlement. For British citizens, who since Brexit are third-country nationals subject to the same rules as other non-Europeans, these two steps are the backbone of a secure life in France.

Both cards are governed by the CESEDA, the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile (the French Code on the entry and residence of foreign nationals and on asylum). The four-year card rewards foreigners who play by the integration rules during year one: attending the prescribed training, passing the civic examination and speaking everyday French. The ten-year card rewards five years of stable, lawful residence plus proven integration, including French at an intermediate level. This guide explains each stage in the order you will meet it, shows you the traps that specifically catch British applicants, notably retirees on visitor cards, and ends with how refusals are challenged before the administrative courts. Each legal statement below is tied to the statutory text or court decision that supports it.

I. The four-year multi-year card after your first year: what the préfet checks before saying yes

A. Attendance, the civic examination and everyday French: the three locks of the first multi-year card

After one year of lawful residence completed under a long-stay visa or, with exceptions, a temporary residence card, you are entitled to a multi-year card on request if you satisfy five cumulative conditions. The statute provides that l’étranger bénéficie, à sa demande, d’une carte de séjour pluriannuelle dès lors que he or she meets the conditions that follow, and the card then bears the same mention (salarié, vie privée et familiale, and so on) as the previous temporary card. If you are changing ground, for example moving from student to employee status, a separate provision allows the new card to be issued whenever the conditions for the new ground are met, and in that case you must in addition satisfy the attendance and civic-examination conditions described below, as article L. 433-6 of the CESEDA states.

The first two locks concern the contrat d’intégration républicaine, the republican integration contract known as the CIR. This is the personalised integration scheme that every newcomer admitted for the first time undertakes with the French State. Under article L. 413-2 of the CESEDA, the foreigner concludes with the State a contract by which he or she undertakes to follow the training and support measures prescribed: the exact statutory words are that the foreigner “conclut avec l’Etat un contrat d’intégration républicaine par lequel il s’engage à suivre les formations et dispositifs d’accompagnement qui lui sont prescrits”. The training itself has three strands under article L. 413-3: civic instruction on the values, principles and institutions of the Republic, language instruction aimed at acquiring French, and vocational guidance with the public employment service, plus reception support adapted to your needs. The administration therefore examines, first, that you attended diligently, exceptional circumstances aside, and participated seriously in the State-prescribed training, and second, that you obtained at least the threshold score in the examination that closes the civic training. In practice this means keeping every summons and attendance certificate from the OFII, the Office français de l’immigration et de l’intégration (the French Office for Immigration and Integration, which runs the CIR), and sitting the civic examination rather than ignoring it, because a no-show with no legitimate reason reads as a lack of seriousness in the file.

The third lock is the French language. The statute requires that il justifie d’une connaissance de la langue française lui permettant au moins de comprendre des expressions fréquemment utilisées dans le langage courant, de communiquer lors de tâches habituelles et d’évoquer des sujets qui correspondent à des besoins immédiats. In the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the yardstick used across Europe from beginner to fluent, this functional description corresponds to elementary survival French: understanding everyday phrases, managing routine exchanges such as shopping, banking or medical appointments, and talking about immediate needs. It is a modest threshold, deliberately so, because the fourth statutory condition requires the State to have given you the means to reach it, through access to free French courses in your département (your administrative county). If no free course was actually available to you, that failure is part of your file, not a fault you must hide: keep the registration attempts and waiting-list letters. Certain categories of permit holders are exempt from the integration contract altogether, and for them the language condition does not apply. Finally, the fifth condition is continuity: you must still satisfy the conditions of the temporary card you previously held, so a salaried worker who lost his or her job and a family member whose circumstances changed must check the underlying ground before applying. Readers who are still at the first-card stage will find the general first-permit routes, and the remedies against a first refusal or removal order, in our companion guide on long-stay visas and first cartes de séjour for British newcomers.

B. Habitual residence, visitors shut out of the four-year card, and the three-month safety net

The most consequential trap for British applicants sits in the list of cards to which the four-year scheme simply does not apply. The statute states that l’article L. 433-4 ne s’applique pas lorsque l’étranger réside en France au titre des cartes de séjour suivantes, and the list that follows includes, at item 3, the temporary card bearing the mention visiteur, the visitor card provided for by article L. 426-20. The visiteur is the permit for a person who lives in France without working here, typically a retiree living on a pension and savings, and it is precisely the status under which most British retirees reside. If that is your situation, no four-year card is available to you after year one: you renew a one-year visitor card each year, proving each time that you will not work and that you have sufficient resources and health cover. The detailed visitor route, from the long-stay visitor visa and its online validation to renewal and challenges against refusal, is covered in our guide for British retirees on the long-stay visitor visa. The exclusion is not a punishment; it reflects that the visitor, who is outside the labour market and the standard integration scheme, follows a different path to durable residence, which Part II below explains. Two related cautions follow from the same list: students on temporary cards and young au pairs are likewise outside the four-year scheme, so British students should read the student rules rather than this chapter, and anyone whose family situation relies on the narrow humanitarian grounds listed alongside should take advice on which track genuinely applies.

For everyone inside the scheme, the préfet also verifies habitual residence in France, and the statute defines that phrase with unusual precision. Under article L. 433-3-1 of the CESEDA, a foreigner is regarded as habitually resident if he or she has transferred the centre of his or her private and family interests to France and stays here at least six months per calendar year during the three years before the application, or during the whole validity of the current permit if that permit covers less than three years. The practical explanation published by the administration confirms this six-month yardstick for proving habitual residence for a multi-year or resident card. For British families splitting time between France and the United Kingdom, this is the provision that bites: long absences caring for relatives in Britain, or winters spent back in the United Kingdom, can break the pattern the préfet expects to see, so keep boarding passes, utility bills, school certificates and tax notices that prove France is genuinely the centre of your life. The administration may carry out checks to confirm that the right of residence is maintained and may summon you to one or more interviews for that purpose.

Renewal itself carries a safety net worth knowing. When you apply to renew a four-year multi-year card, a resident card, or certain treaty-based permits of more than one year, you may prove the lawfulness of your stay between expiry and the administration’s decision by producing the expired card, within three months of its expiry: the exact rule is that the holder may justify continued lawful stay by presenting the expired document for three months from expiry, and during that window keeps all social rights and the right to work. The administration’s practical page on the four-year multi-year card restates the same protection. This means an expired card in your pocket, plus proof that you applied in time, protects you against any claim that you are unlawfully present while the préfecture decides. It does not excuse a late application, and it does not cover every short permit in every département, so apply two to four months before expiry and keep the receipt of your renewal appointment. One final distinction matters for readers who arrived under the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and hold a WARP card, the Withdrawal Agreement residence permit: your status follows the Agreement’s own track, not the newcomer track described here, and renewals and refusals are examined in our guide on WARP card renewal and challenges.

II. The ten-year resident card: five years, intermediate French and a file that proves integration

A. Five years, stable resources, health insurance and B1 French: the long-term EU resident route

The principal gateway to a ten-year card for British residents is the European long-term resident card, the carte de résident portant la mention résident de longue durée-UE. Under article L. 426-17 of the CESEDA, a foreigner who shows five years of continuous lawful residence in France under a temporary card, a multi-year card or a resident card, stable, regular and sufficient resources to support himself or herself, and health insurance, is granted this ten-year card, subject only to the exceptions listed in the following article. The resources test is arithmetical: les ressources mentionnées au premier alinéa doivent atteindre un montant au moins égal au salaire minimum de croissance, meaning your own resources, excluding family benefits and the listed welfare allowances, must reach at least the SMIC, the statutory national minimum wage. The administration’s checklist requires proof of sufficient, stable and regular resources over the last five years, such as payslips, tax assessments, pension statements, employment contracts, bank certificates or rental income, and the administration’s practical page on the ten-year resident card restates these three pillars of duration, resources and integration. For British applicants this is where the file is won or lost long before it is filed: keep five complete years of French tax notices, which also prove fiscal residence, keep every employment contract and pension statement, and never assume that an honorable but undocumented cash income will count, because only your own documented resources are taken into account.

Here the visitor finds the door that the four-year card had closed. The exceptions to the five-year route are listed in article L. 426-18, and they concern seasonal workers, ICT transferees, students, trainees, holders of talent passports and their families, pensioners holding the retraité card, and persons under certain protection statuses. The visitor card does not appear in that exclusion list, so years spent lawfully in France as a visiteur can in principle count toward the five years, provided you meet every other condition, including resources, health insurance and, crucially, integration. That is the realistic horizon for a British retiree who arrived on a visitor visa: yearly renewals first, then, after five continuous years, an application for the ten-year long-term EU resident card. Continuity is the watchword throughout, because any gap in lawful residence restarts the clock, which is why the three-month renewal receipt protection described in Part I must be used systematically and every renewal deadline diarised.

Integration at this level is examined more strictly than for the four-year card, and the language bar has risen. Under article L. 413-7 of the CESEDA, first issue of the resident card depends on republican integration, assessed in particular on the result in the civic examination, which must exceed a threshold set by decree, and on knowledge of French sufficient at least to understand reasonably clear conversation, to produce simple and coherent speech on everyday subjects, and to outline an idea briefly. The implementing regulation now sets that linguistic level at B1 of the European framework, the lower-intermediate rung at which a person handles travel, work and social situations independently: the foreigner provides diplomas or certification attesting command of French at a level equal to or above B1, together with a certificate of success in the civic examination, subject only to adjustments for disability and to the rule that applicants over sixty-five are not subject to the language condition. Applicants should note the direction of travel: court decisions from the early 2020s applied an A2 elementary threshold, whereas the current regulatory text requires B1, so older forum anecdotes about an easy language test are out of date and the DELF B1 or an equivalent listed diploma should be prepared a year ahead. Beyond language, the préfet weighs your personal commitment to the principles of the Republic and your actual compliance with them, takes account of your respect for the integration contract where one was signed, and must seek the opinion of the mayor of your commune of residence, an opinion deemed favourable if the mayor does not reply within two months. A reasoned, dated file, language diploma, civic-examination certificate, tax and resource records, proof of health cover, and evidence of local life such as school, association or neighbourhood ties, is therefore not presentation for its own sake but the direct answer to each statutory sub-test. Once the ten-year card is held, the horizon extends further still: after it, a permanent resident card of indefinite duration may be issued on request, and it becomes an entitlement from the second renewal of a resident card, under article L. 426-4 of the CESEDA.

B. Challenging a refusal: stated reasons, manifest error and the judge who orders the card delivered

A refusal must be reasoned, and that obligation is your first line of defence. The statute allows refusal of a temporary card, a multi-year card or a resident card where the foreigner’s presence is a threat to public order, but only by a decision that states its reasons: la délivrance d’une carte de séjour temporaire ou pluriannuelle ou d’une carte de résident peut, par une décision motivée, être refusée à tout étranger dont la présence en France constitue une menace pour l’ordre public. In practice most refusals of the cards in this guide rely instead on the ordinary conditions: missed training, a failed or skipped civic examination, insufficient French, interrupted residence, or resources below the minimum wage. Whatever the stated ground, demand the written decision and read its voies de recours, the notice of remedies printed at the foot, because time runs from notification and the notice tells you where and how quickly to act. The standard deadline for attacking an administrative decision before the tribunal administratif, the first-instance administrative court, is two months from notification or publication: la juridiction ne peut être saisie que par voie de recours formé contre une décision, et ce, dans les deux mois à partir de la notification ou de la publication de la décision attaquée. A gracious appeal to the préfet, asking him to reconsider, can accompany court proceedings but does not by itself stop the clock unless the texts say otherwise, so the safe course is to file the court challenge inside the two months while separately seeking reconsideration, and to check the notice carefully where the refusal is paired with an order to leave France, which follows its own litigation timetable.

The courts review these refusals for legal error and for manifest error in assessing the facts, and three recent appeal decisions show how that review works in practice. In a Nancy case, the préfet had refused a ten-year card on integration grounds, invoking an old suspended prison sentence for document offences linked to irregular entry and an unreasoned opinion from the mayor criticising the applicant’s French and knowledge of republican principles. The administrative court of appeal annulled the refusal, holding that the old conviction, already followed by years of lawful residence under temporary cards, could not establish a lack of integration, and that the mayor’s bare opinion could not carry the language finding on its own. The court’s operative words deserve quotation: the préfet, it held, ne pouvait légalement fonder son refus de lui accorder un certificat de résidence de dix ans au regard de la condition d’intégration républicaine sur la condamnation et les signalements dont elle a fait l’objet. Because the decision necessarily implied a specific outcome, the court then ordered the préfet to deliver the ten-year card within one month, applying the rule that lorsque sa décision implique nécessairement qu’une personne morale de droit public prenne une mesure d’exécution dans un sens déterminé, la juridiction prescrit, par la même décision, cette mesure assortie, le cas échéant, d’un délai d’exécution, and ordered the State to pay 1,500 euros in costs. The lesson for British applicants is direct: an ancient matter, a spent allegation, or a one-line mayoral remark is not the end of the story, and the judge can substitute delivery of the card for the annulled refusal.

A Paris case from 2023 makes the same point on language and resources, and it is the closest mirror of an ordinary British file. The préfet had refused a long-term EU resident card for lack of sufficient resources and for French below A2, the threshold then in force. The court compared five years of payslips and tax assessments with the minimum-wage benchmark year by year and found the resources sufficient throughout, then turned to the diploma in the file: M. A… a obtenu le 6 janvier 2020 la délivrance du diplôme d’études en langue française (DELF A2) qui est au nombre des diplômes figurant dans la liste annexée à l’arrêté ministériel précité du 21 février 2018. Holding that diploma, the applicant satisfied the language test as it stood on the decision date, so that le préfet de la Seine-Saint-Denis a méconnu les dispositions précitées de l’article L. 413-7 du code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile. Both grounds of refusal fell together, the court annulled the decision, ordered delivery of the ten-year long-term EU resident card within two months, and again awarded 1,500 euros against the State. A British reader should absorb the method rather than the old A2 label, since the regulatory threshold is now B1: arrive with the listed diploma already in hand, and with the arithmetic of five years of resources already done, so the préfet has no opening. The counter-example confirms the discipline of this review: in a 2024 Bordeaux case the court upheld a refusal of the long-term EU resident card, finding no manifest error in the préfet’s assessment, and rejected the appeal in full, a reminder that l’erreur manifeste dans l’appréciation de sa situation is the test the applicant must prove, and that a thin or contradictory file will not pass it. Prepare accordingly: the DELF or equivalent diploma from the ministerial list, five years of payslips and tax notices above the minimum wage, continuous health insurance, the civic-examination certificate, and written proof of habitual residence, filed as a paginated bundle with a covering letter that maps each exhibit to its statutory condition.

Conclusion

The two cards form a single ladder. The four-year multi-year card rewards a successful first year: genuine attendance at the integration training, a pass in the civic examination, everyday French, and France as the real centre of your life, with visitor cards following their own yearly track outside this scheme. The ten-year long-term EU resident card rewards five continuous years backed by documented resources at least equal to the minimum wage, continuous health insurance, intermediate French at B1 level with a listed diploma, and a successful civic examination, all weighed with the mayor’s opinion. At each rung the same discipline applies: count the years and the months of presence, keep every certificate and tax notice, file renewals before expiry so the three-month receipt protects you, and meet a refusal with a dated, exhibit-mapped challenge inside the two-month deadline, asking the court not only to annul but to order delivery of the card. Built file by file in that order, a British residence history in France becomes progressively unassailable.