The Consulate General of France in Moscow has extended the processing time for visa applications from Thursday for several days, the diplomatic mission reported on its website, Interfax reports.
“From June 21, due to technical problems, the period for reviewing visa applications will increase by several days,” the statement said.
According to the rules for issuing Schengen visas, consulates have a maximum period of 10 working days to review documents. At the same time, since the beginning of November 2017, France has been issuing Schengen visas to Russian citizens within 48 hours if the documents are submitted in Moscow.
A source in the tourism market told the Interfax-Tourism portal that the extension of visa processing times may be connected with the change of the Consul General of France in the Russian Federation. Consul Mark Sediy is leaving Russia at the end of June after three years of work.
According to the source, tour operators learned about this with sadness, since over the past year the consulate has reduced the processing time to 48 hours when submitting documents in Moscow, introduced mobile biometrics and, in general, has become one of the friendliest among the Schengen countries.
Source: trn-news.ru
