I hold a UK tier-2 work visa (Indian citizen) which will expire in May-2018 and I'm looking to apply for my first schengen visa. My aim is to receive a 6-month multiple-entry schengen visa for which I have two options -
Apply through the French embassy: Itinerary would be around a week in France and a week in Germany. I know of at least 5-6 people who managed to get a 6-month multiple-entry schengen visa by applying for a 2-4 week vacation through France. Some of them didn't even visit France, they made ghost bookings for the visa but if I go by this route I will visit France as I'm not too keen on breaking the 'visa rules'
Apply through the German embassy: Itinerary would be two or three 5-day trips over a course of 6 months. Justification for this would be that my girlfriend works in Germany and also I would be staying with her (she has a blue card but it's just been a month since she moved to Germany) However, the German embassy page states that the maximum duration they would provide a visa for is just 90 days? (link -> http://www.uk.diplo.de/Vertretung/unitedkingdom/en/07/Visa/1Info-Schengen-visa/Schengen-Visa.html)
I'd rather not visit France straight away so would prefer #2 over #1 provided that #2 is not a hopeless cause. I'd very much appreciate your thoughts/suggestions/experiences.
Note: I'm also planning on calling up the German embassy to enquire as well but wanted to check here first!