French Consulate General, San Francisco

Consulate-General of France in San Francisco Consulat Général de France à San Francisco
Front of the Consulate General of France in San Francisco
Location	San Francisco CA
Address	540 Bush Street - 94104
Ambassador	Pierre-François Mourier

The Consulate General of France in San Francisco is a consular representation of the French Republic in the United States. Its juridiction covers Northern California, North of Nevada, and the following states: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, and the Pacific Islands under American juridiction (Guam and American Samoa)^[1]. The Consulate is currently located in the French quarter of San Francisco, on 540 Bush Street.

Under the authority of the Minister of European and Foreign Affairs, the Consulate General of France is responsible for the protection and administrative affairs of French nationals settled or traveling within the American Northwest.

The Consulate provides many services to the French community and those who desire to voyage to France.

Consular Services

Visas

A visa allows a foreigner and non-European Union member, to enter and travel temporarily within French territory. The visa services are open:

• Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm
• And on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm (closed for the afternoon)^[2].

The Chancellery

The chancellery (open from Monday to Friday from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm) provides all of administrative services to French citizens abroad. It is necessary to contact the chancellery as soon as your documents have been lost or stolen, regarding the renewal of passports or to obtain scholarships, grants, or other scholar financial aides. This service establishes itself as a direct interface between migrants and their nation of origin^[3]. The Chancellery regularly organizes consular missions within the juridiction to assist and support French citizens abroad^[4].

Cultural Services

The headquarters of Cultural Services of the French Embassy is based in New York^[5]. However, The Consulate General of France in San Francisco, like all 10 of the French Consulates in the United States, possess a cultural service department that satisfies the following missions:

• Encourage French cultural productions by helping professionals and artists in the United States,
• Promote the French educational system by managing the careers of French teachers, professors, and research workers in the United States, establishing guidance for students and parents, organizing national exams,
• Accompany students regarding to their university transfers,
• Inform students and professionals returning to France of procedures to follow, like producing the necessary contacts for their job,
• Support all possible efforts towards artistic events, cultural establishments, and higher education^[6].

Scientific Services

This service, shared by consulates of San Francisco and Los Angeles, is in charge of maintaining a watchful eye on sciences and technology, by developing an international scientific cooperation and contributing to the promotion of French science and technologies in the United States^[7].

Press and Communication Services

This represents the direction of Communication and of “Porte-parolat”(DCP) of the Minister of European and Foreign Affairs^[8]. Its mission include:

1. To inform the public and the press about France, its institutions and its foreign policy and to respond to demands and enquiries,
2. To inform the Minister of Foreign Affairs and through it, French authorities, about the primary political, economic and social events occurring within the juridiction,
3. To organize information for the French and foreign public through the web site of the Consulate General,
4. To establish and develop privileged contacts with the press within the circumscription, in order to present and explain France’s position in regards to foreign policy.(Attention: the Press service is not the “spokesman” of France)
5. To monitor the image projected of France in the local media and to correct, if needed, informational errors by using the right of reply.

France Abroad

The Consul General

The Consul Général, Mr. Pierre-François Mourier

Born in 1966, Pierre-François Mourier is an alumnus of Ecole Normale Supérieure with a major in classic Literature. After many positions in the heart of ministerial cabinets (including the cabinet of the President of the Republic in 2005), P-F Mourier was appointed to the Consulate General of San Francisco in 2007. Member of the Council of the State, he is also an Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres^[9]. In August 2010, he was replaced by Romain Serman.

Honorary Consuls

As a whole of the consular juridiction (nearly 4 million km²), the honorary consuls relieves the actions of the Consulate within the states of the Northwest. Usually, they legalize certain administrative procedures and directly collaborating with the Consulate General. However, they can not provide passports, identification cards or create official registration (documents such as birth certificates, marriage licenses, or death certificates)^[10].

Current honorary Consuls^[11]:

1. Alaska - Mrs. Nathalie Novik
2. California - Mrs. Jane Wheaton
3. Guam - Mrs. Joëlle Wainer
4. Hawaii - Mrs. Patricia Lee
5. Idaho - Mrs. Gabrielle Applequist
6. Montana - Mrs. Chantal Davoine-Moser
7. Nevada - Mrs. Aurélie Delaissez-Forstall
8. Oregon - Mrs. Claudine Fischer
9. Utah - Mrs. Marie-Hélène Glon
10. Washington - Mr. Jack Cowan
11. Wyoming - Mrs. Séverine Murdoch

French Presence

The Consulate General collaborates regularly with numerous French associations and organizations abroad ^[12].

Assistance for New Residents

The Press and Communications service provides a guide to help French citizens who wish to settle in the region of the Bay Area (“le Petit Débrouillard”)^[13].

France in California

California, French territory?

Jean-François de la Pérouse

On September 15, 1789, Jean-François de La Pérouse drops anchor in Monterey Bay and then, marking the first official French presence in California. The explorer collected precious geographic and scientific goods from the region, boasting its " enormous resources " and strategic position. The French naturalist and botanist, Eugène Duflos de Mofras, was sent to the Pacific coast during the 1840s and published his book in which he depicts a vast region with a population of merely 4,000 people^[14].

The American West coast particularly interested the king, Louis-Philippe I, who had hoped to recbuild the great French empire before 1763^[15]. The summon of Louis Gasquet as Consul General of Monterey in November 1843, illustrates a type of political offensive by the government of the time. This unexpected presence worried American and Mexican authorities who struggled for the monopoly of the region. France was the first country to have official representation in California and Gasquet, aware of the predominant position of France, pushed the government to send naval forces as soon as possible. Refusing to recognize the sovereignty of Sloate and Stockton, established during the American independence from England, Gasquet was imprisoned for 51 days (in reality, a sentinel was placed in front of his home, preventing him from completing his consular mission).

After an exchange of diplomatic letters, Louis Gasquet was finally released and replaced by Jacob Moerenhout in October 1846. Preserving the interests of his citizens and observing the turbulent behaviors of his neighbors, Moernhout created a region favorable to French immigrants. He settled in the Consulate of Monterey, situated by the sea : " a spacious house with a beautiful rose garden and orchards"^[16].

The French community of San Francisco

The city of San Francisco in 1860

When San Francisco was still called Yerba Buena ("the good herb"), only three French nationals were recorded among 800 inhabitants.^[17] However, the quickly increasing population (23,000 inhabitants in 1852) enticed the government of President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to establish the French Consulate in San Francisco, the new economic capital of the region. France already had a consular agent that exercised his duties until the arrival of the first Consul General, Mr. Patrice Dillion, on July 22, 1850.^[18] Unable to settle in a city still in construction, the Consul accepted the hospitality of a damp French ship on the bay. Sometime later, he decided to take residence on the corner of Jackson and Mason.

The position of Consul General of France in San Francisco was significant because it introduced the most important diplomatic representation in all of the Western United States. According to Jehanne Biétry-Sallinger, California consisted of 352,000 inhabitants, of which 28,000 were French, in other words almost 8% of the total population.^[19] The principal mission of the consulate back then was to bring emergency assistance to new immigrants. When they arrived, their first step in this region far away and unknown, was to go to the consulate in order to receive information and money to settle and work in the mines. San Francisco was an unsafe city and brawls often broke out between French and foreign miners. The Consul had to flee quickly to the backcountry to escape being hung by his fellow citizens, as was the case in Placerville in 1853. Moreover, the Consul organized numerous public demonstrations in honor of events that affected France, such as the storming of Sebastopol in 1855.

This troubled period experienced the development of a French community united and dynamic, growing each day as a result of boats shipping migrants bound for the "streets to gold". Most stayed and settled permanently: the erection of the church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in 1856 is the most striking example. Gradually, the community organized and founded restaurants, laundry, and theaters near Bush and Mason Street: the French quarter was therefore rapidly developing.

The Consulate General of France in San Francisco

After 1892, the consular office moved to 604 Commercial Street, next to the port within the Financial District. Documents of the time disclosed an exact description of the Consulate of France : " the neighborhood is modest, its entry is abrupt, but it seems as though there are enough serious motifs which have unfortunately been often criticized by the French colony and French voyagers in passing, the Consulate will be preserved here where it is. Insufficient funds for rent were administered to the chief of staff who then had to pay the remaining sum from his own reserves(…) in addition, our Consul would have received the authorization to renew the antique furniture that remained. It is necessary to include that the great majority of foreign consulates should not have a better status. The budget does not always measure up to amount expected^[20]. "

San Francisco after the earthquake (1906)

The earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco ruined most French investments and the Consulate was completely destroyed. On April 20, 1906 a telegram addressed to the Quai d'Orsay reads, "The manager of our Consulate in San Francisco telegrams me with hopes to inform the Department that the Consulate is destroyed; the personnel is safe, the archives have stayed under the rubble^[21]." Little France therefore lost all its influence in local life. After the earthquake, the consulate settled at the Union Trust Building. Following the Second World War, that witnessed the succession of two Consuls to the same post (one representing Vichy France, the other liberated France), the Consulate installed at 690 Market Street^[22]. After the war, the residence of the two Consulates would be closed and official receptions would be held just in front, in the Palace Hotel. By 1958, the Consulate moved to a more spacious location in a three story building on the corner of Bush and Taylor.

During the 1970s, the Consulate acquired of a very beautiful residence on Jackson Street (bought in 1967), in Pacific Heights^[23]. Sadly, the narrowness of the building and its miserable location, forced the Minister of Foreign Affairs to find a new local. It was after the construction of a modern building on 540 Bush Street (next to the church Notre-Dame-des-Victoires) that the Consulate installed indefinitely in 1981.

Annexe

• 

  Counties of California under the juridiction of the Consulate General

• 

  States of the North-West under the juridiction of the Consulate General

• 

  The earthquake of 1906 destroyed a large part of San Francisco, including the French Quarter

Consuls General in San Francisco

1843-1846	Louis GASQUET (in Monterey)
1846-1850	Jacob.A MOEHRENHOUT (in Monterey)
1850-19 December 1856	Patrice DILLON
1857-19 April 1861	Frédéric-Abel GAUTIER
1861-9 June 1863	Antoine FOREST
1863-1er Jan.1864	Frédéric-Abel GAUTIER
1864-18 Nov.1867	Charles de CAZOTTE
1867-16 Nov.1868	J. BELCOUR
1868-13 Feb.1869	Charles de CAZOTTE
1869-25 June.1869	J. BELCOUR
1869-26 Jul.1875	Édouard BREUIL
1875-11 Dec.1875	J. BELCOUR
1876-30 Oct.1877	Antoine FOREST
1877-31 Oct.1880	Consul, Antoine FOREST
1880-28 Oct.1884	Auguste VAUVERT de MEAN
1884-1891	Edmond CARREY
1891-1892	Gustave-Auguste DELONGRAYE
1892-1898	Alexandre LAURENCE DE LALANDE
1898	TRUY (never arrived)
1898-1901	Adolphe DENIS de TROBRIAND
1901-1903	Auguste-Henri DALLEMAGNE
1903-1907	Etienne-Marie-Louis LANEL
11 avril 1903	The Consulate became a Consulate General
1907-1912	Henri-Antoine MEROU
1912-1915	Raphaël MONNET
1915-1924	Hippolyte-Charles-Julien NELTNER
1924-1931	Maurice HEILMANN
1931-1937	Yves MERIC de BELLEFON
1937-1941	Roger GAUCHERON
1941-1942	Claude BREART de BOISANGER
November 1942	The Consulate General is closed.
1943-1945	Charles-Simon de LESSART
1945-1946	Jacques BAEYENS
1946-1948	Raoul BERTRAND
1949-1951	Jean VYAU de LAGARDE
1952-1955	Louis de Guiringaud
1956-1960	Robert LUC
1961-1966	Pierre BASDEVANT
1967-1971	Claude BATAULT
1972-1976	Emmanuel de CASTEJA
1977-1978	Pierre MATHIVET de la VILLE de MIRMONT
1979-1981	Pierre Brochand
1982-1985	Gérard ERRERA
1986-1990	Pierre VIAUX
1991-1994	Yves ROE d'ALBERT
1995-1996	Alain LE GOURRIEREC
1997-1999	André PARANT
2000-2002	Gérard Coste
2003-2007	Frédéric DESAGNEAUX
2007-2010	Pierre-François MOURIER
2010-present	Romain SERMAN

See also

• France
• San Francisco

References

1. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?article957
2. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?rubrique200
3. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?rubrique201
4. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?article957#Tournees-consulaires
5. ^ http://www.frenchculture.org/
6. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?rubrique192
7. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?rubrique140
8. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?article955
9. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?article1088
10. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?article957#Les-consuls-honoraires
11. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?article957
12. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?article348
13. ^ http://www.consulfrance-sanfrancisco.org/spip.php?article996
14. ^ DUFLOS de MOFRAS Eugène, Exploration du territoire de l’Orégon, des Californies et de la mer Vermeille, exécutée pendant les années 1840, 1841 et 1842, Paris - Arthus Bertrand, 1844.
15. ^ Treaty of Paris.
16. ^ According to the article of Raoul H. Blanquet in the book Notre centenaire of Jehanne Biétry-Sallinger (1949).
17. ^ Population estimated in 1847.
18. ^ Mr. Guys from November 1847 to July 1850.
19. ^ According to a census of 1853, published in the book Notre Centenaire(1949).
20. ^ LEROY and PARILLAUD, San Francisco et sa Colonie Française, Carle Imprimeur, 1895.
21. ^ Telegram furnished by the archives of the French Foreign Affairs Minister in Nantes, to the Press and Communication Service of the Consulate of France in San Francisco
22. ^ According to Miss Juliette Sabatou, secretary in the Consulate from 1946 to 1975
23. ^ Information furnished by the Quai d'Orsay to the Consulate of France

External links

• Official Website of the French Consulate
• Official Blog of the Consulate
• Our Fan Page Facebook