Can anyone tell me if there is anything at all one can do about being refused a Schengen tourist visa for France? My wife has dual British and Thai nationality. We live mostly in Thailand for five months every year we go to France, where we have a large house.

Every year for five years down to 2008, her only surviving sibling, to whom she is much attached, was given a visa to join us there for about a month. Then suddenly last year he was refused. Five days before, the French consul in Chiangmai had telephoned to say I should fax the French embassy an explanation of why he came to France, as they suspected he might work there. I did so, so when the refusal came, it was fairly obviously because they did not believe me. I do not know why, as he never did work in France, cannot speak a word of anything except Thai and we live in the depths of the countryside where work would be nearly impossible to come by anyway. Now this year they have refused again, making me think they have put him on some blacklist.

Is there any way of confirming why he was refused? Is there any means of appeal, anyway of reasoning with the French embassy, or anything we can do to make an application in the future succeed? Is there any point in him applying for a visa again, or is it hopeless?

There seem to be thousands of mailings on this website for British visas, but I cannot find anything equivalent for Schengen. Please can someone put me on the right track?

The following link came up from a Google search. I should stress that it appears to be a commercial site. Neither this forum nor I have any connection with the site and are not recommending it. You should make your own mind up about the veracity of the information provided.

Appealing a Schengen visa denial

Quoting your OP post:

"Every year for five years down to 2008, her only surviving sibling, to whom she is much attached, was given a visa to join us there for about a month.

Then suddenly last year he was refused. Five days before, the French consul in Chiangmai had telephoned to say I should fax the French embassy an explanation of why he came to France, as they suspected he might work there. I did so, so when the refusal came, it was fairly obviously because they did not believe me. I do not know why, as he never did work in France, cannot speak a word of anything except Thai and we live in the depths of the countryside where work would be nearly impossible to come by anyway.

Now this year they have refused again, making me think they have put him on some blacklist."

So, he was granted a TOURIST visa for 5 consecutive years, from 2003 to 2008 and suddenly he was refused in 2009; is that correct ?

Why didn't you oppose to the denial for a Tourist Visa in 2009, like it says in the link, provided by 7by7 (since I didn't read about that).

It has to be done within 2 months after the refusal; I think the fax to the French Embassy wasn't enough.

In fact, the Embassies do not always refuse a Visa; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or it's Dependance for Immigration can decide so..OR...the Embassy didn't know about the history.

Now they refused another Visa for this year -2010- but that denial is probably based upon the denial for 2009.

If I were in your shoes I would either write a clear letter to the proper authorities (see link) or hire an Immigration Lawyer in France.

There must be plenty of them.

It's odd that they granted 5 Visas and suddenly stopped.

Good luck

LaoPo

You should appeal the decision immediately.