French Consulate General, San Francisco

Visas

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

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. The Chancellery regularly organizes consular missions within the jurisdiction to assist and support French citizens abroad.

Cultural Services

The headquarters of Cultural Services of the French Embassy is based in New York. 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:

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.

Press and Communication Services

This represents the direction of Communication and of “Porte-parolat”(DCP) of the Minister of European and Foreign Affairs. 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 jurisdiction,
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.

The Consul General

Emmanuel Lebrun-Damiens was appointed Consul General in San Francisco on May 4, 2016.

Originally from Normandy and 39 years old, Emmanuel Lebrun-Damiens graduated from the Strasbourg Institute of Political Studies (“promotion de Stefan Zweig 1999”) and is a former student of the “Ecole Nationale d’Administration” (“promotion René Cassin 2003”).

He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development in May 2003.

The various positions that he has held in Paris and throughout the diplomatic network abroad have led him to his strong interest in bilateral relationships (Deputy Counsellor (or Deputy Head of Mission) at the Embassy of France in New Zealand from 2005 to 2008), in global governance in the health and humanitarian field (negotiator at the permanent Representation of France to the United Nations in New York from 2008 to 2011), Deputy Director of Human Development from 2012 to 2014) and finally at the organization and internal management of the Ministry (Special Adviser for financial affairs from 2003 to 2005, Adviser to the Minister Laurent Fabius for administration and budgetary questions from 2014 to 2016).

Honorary Consuls

As a whole of the consular jurisdiction (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).

Current honorary Consuls:

1. Alaska - Mrs. Catherine Ferret
2. California (Sacramento) - Mrs. Guy Michelier
3. Guam - Mrs. Joëlle Wainer
4. Hawaii - Mr. Guillaume Maman
5. Idaho - Mrs. Gabrielle Applequist
6. Montana - Mrs. Laurence Markarian
7. Nevada - Mr. Pascal Baboulin
8. Oregon - Mrs. Françoise Aylmer
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.

California, French territory?

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.

The American West coast particularly interested the king, Louis-Philippe I, who had hoped to rebuild the great French empire before 1763. 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 behavior 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".

The French community of San Francisco

When San Francisco was still called Yerba Buena ("the good herb"), only three French nationals were recorded among 800 inhabitants. However, the rapidly growing population (23,000 inhabitants in 1852) enticed the government of President Louis-Napoléon 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. Unable to settle in a city still under 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, almost 8% of the total population. The principal mission of the consulate at the time was to provide emergency assistance to new immigrants. When they arrived in this faraway and unknown region, their first stop was the consulate, 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 quickly flee to the hinterlands to escape being hung by his fellow citizens, as in Placerville in 1853. Moreover, the Consul organized numerous public ceremonies in honor of events that affected France, such as the storming of Sebastopol in 1855.

This troubled period saw the development of a united and dynamic French community that grew 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, laundries, and theaters near Bush and Mason Street; the French quarter thus developed rapidly.

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. "

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." 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. 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. 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 in 1981.

In 2011 the consulate moved to the 6th floor of the modern office tower on 88 Kearny Street.