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I'm trying to get a Schengen Visa from my first port of entry, France. I am trying to book an appointment with the French Consulate in SF, and the URL I am using is the following: https://pastel.diplomatie.gouv.fr/rdvinternet/html-3.04.03/frameset/frameset.html?lcid=1&sgid=260&suid=1

I've been checking this page periodically for the past few weeks, and I always see a dialog that that says "We are currently at full capacity. Please try again later." Their calendar provides no direct option for going to the next month. (Using the in-browser developer tools, I noticed that the button for next month is hidden. Un-hiding it and clicking on the Next Month button displays no available appointments either. I checked all the way until September 2016).

My guess is that there are absolutely no appointments for the next 6 months. Or, more likely, their page isn't functioning properly. I'll be traveling in July. Does anybody have any alternate suggestions to book an appointment?

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  • Is France your main destination? The "first port of entry" rule has the lowest priority. Most Schengen visa applicants visiting more than one country should apply to the country of main destination instead.
    – phoog
    Commented May 13, 2016 at 13:22
  • @Kirupa Any updates on this? Were you able to book an appointment? I am getting the same issue
    – user38814
    Commented Jun 25, 2016 at 19:30
  • Please, how did you get a visa? I have the same problem and I can't apply for a visa from Sydney.
    – rasul
    Commented May 21, 2018 at 11:53

1 Answer 1

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Is the site broken?

Unlikely, it is more likely that the consulate in San Francisco is not booking appointments at the moment. Attempting to book an appointment using the link you gave, gives a screen like this... enter image description here

And on this page we observe that French consulates use an app called 'rendez-vous'. So switching the location to Vancouver gives us this page...

enter image description here

which shows that the app is working. To confirm, let's see if the same user experience occurs in Rio...

enter image description here

Rio works. But there's no indication that San Francisco is broken. So we can put this down to one of several alternatives...

  1. The San Francisco consulate is not staffed up at this time in a way that can accommodate your appointment request (i.e., the app is reporting the situation accurately);

  2. A consular staff member has corrupted the database such that all the Vice Consuls in SF are shown as indefinitely busy;

  3. The San Francisco consulate has somehow fallen off the grid and your experience is the app's way of telling you.

To move forward, you can pursue one of several options...

  1. Contact the consulate using their 'contact us' details and explain what the problem is. It's likely this may result in a problem ticket being raised at the IT support facility in La Defence (that's a bad thing).

  2. Book your appointment in Vancouver (or another site with available slots) and then put in an immediate change request on it (or alternatively, just attend the appointment).

  3. Play 'map-and-die' with the URI tail to locate a different consulate more convenient to you (that's how I found Vancouver and Rio by the way).

  4. My personal favourite: rework your itinerary such that you will land in a different member (thereby changing the cognizant issuer).

  5. Keep trying and trying to wait for the San Francisco site to have something available.

  6. Start (very tactfully) haranguing them on Twitter about it. You can start by asking them to identify your liaison for 'rendez-vous' issues, that usually gets the ball rolling. Or ask them to read this.

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