To come to France, either alone or with a group, requires some administrative formalities, which depend essentially on the country of origin and the duration of the stay. You will need documents of identification, a medical cover, public liability insurance, and repatriation insurance.
Necessary identification documents to come to France, several possibilities:
– For European travelling in France, the National ID card or the Passport is enough, whatever the duration of the stay. These ID documents indeed allow the European to move freely in the Schengen area. It includes 26 members: Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein.
– For the non-European, a visa will be necessary besides their Passport:
- The short-stay visa (or “Schengen visa “) for stays less than 3 months, which allow the holder to travel freely during 90 days in countries mentioned above.
- The long-stay visa, when the duration is more than 3-months, for the academic programmes for example.
Visa applications are made at the French Embassy or the Consulate in the country of origin of the participants. List of Embassies and French consulates abroad here.
SILC supplies the necessary documents for the visa application: school certificate, host family confirmation…
Health insurance
To be covered in case of disease or accident, the travelers have to take the following actions:
– For the European travelers, the individual health European Card covers medical expenses, and is compulsory for all the persons, whatever their age.
– For the non-European, it is necessary to have a private insurance, or insurance proposed by SILC.
Public liability insurance
To cover the possible damage which could be caused to the host family, at school, in the street, the traveler must be covered by a Civil/Public liability insurance, which allows to substitute itself for the person to financially compensate the damage caused.
All the insurances offer this type of cover, sometimes included with the house insurance. It is compulsory and SILC requests a copy.
Repatriation insurance
Repatriation insurance insures the transport and the repatriation in case of disease or accident abroad. SILC set up agreements with a reknown company, this insurance is included automatically in all the stays.