You live in West Africa and your family includes a French national? Each French consulate applies its own civil status rules, and some posts have closed. Choose your country to find the up-to-date procedures and the pitfalls to avoid.
Procedures country by country
- Senegal, The Gambia, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau: French Consulate General in Dakar (see our guides below)
- Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia: French Consulate General in Abidjan
- Guinea and Sierra Leone: French Embassy in Conakry
- Mali: French Consulate General in Bamako
- Burkina Faso: consulate closed, procedures via Nantes and Abidjan
- Niger: embassy closed, procedures via Nantes and Lomé
- Benin: French Embassy in Cotonou
- Togo: French Embassy in Lomé
- Mauritania: French Embassy in Nouakchott
Each page also explains where to apply for a French visa in the country (consulate or service provider) and how to challenge a refusal. See our page French visa refusal lawyer.
Our guides by procedure (French consulate in Dakar)
- Registering a birth
- Recognising a child
- Marrying a French national: CCAM and transcription
- The PACS
- Having a divorce recognised in France
- The death of a loved one
- Changing your surname
- Changing your first name
How we help
Legal Field Avocats advises families living in West Africa or originating from the region in their civil status procedures with the French authorities: checking records, preparing files, follow-up with the consulate or the Central Civil Status Service in Nantes, and appeals in the event of a refusal or an objection by the public prosecutor. Our correspondent law firm in France, FB AVOCAT, takes over for proceedings before the French courts.
A civil status file in progress? Call us on +221 33 844 29 16.
LEGAL FIELD AVOCATS
14 rue Woro Fila, Fann Hock, Dakar, Senegal
Phone: +221 33 844 29 16
Email: contact@fbavocat-sn.com
Our correspondent law firm in France:
FB AVOCAT
11 rue Galin, 33100 Bordeaux, France
Phone: +33 9 85 40 18 64
Email: contact@legalfb-avocat.fr