Leaving the Schengen area with an expired visa and transiting through another Schengen country

Question

This is a bit of a loaded/complicated question, so let me begin with some back story:

• Third Country (non EU) Citizen
• Applying for French residency
• In possession of the first “récépissé de demande de carte de séjour” (not a renewal)
• Not yet in possession of residency card
• Schengen visa used to initially enter France has now expired

This person needs to leave France to their home country urgently, understanding that they need to apply for a new visa in their home country in order to re-enter France.

The question is, can they take a connecting flight through Athens to return to their home country?

Technically they are already in the Schengen area, but the receipt doesn’t allow travel outside of France, but would this be ok given that the flight is a connection to leave the Schengen area? Or do they need to exit the Schengen area in France?

Answer 1

Without a valid Schengen visa or residency permit, they are not allowed to travel to any other Schengen country. A récépissé for a renewal counts as a residency permit, a récépissé for a first application does not. The latter allows them to remain in France, but not to travel to or stay in any other Schengen country.

There aren't supposed to be any systematic checks, and you shouldn't expect "temporarily reintroduced" checks travelling from France to Greece, so you could think one could slip through the net.

However:

• There can still be random checks
• Some airlines like Ryanair are overzealous and will check documentation and refuse boarding in the absence of the right paperwork. See here for a recent case where they even denied boarding to someone who actually had the right paperwork!
• There will be exit passport checks in Greece, where they are likely to detect the anomaly, which could lead to complications for future visa applications. Whether they will actually notice and take action or not is difficult to guess.

So the official answer you'll get here is: they need to travel directly to their home country, or use itineraries where all connections happen outside Schengen.