Lay My Hat

Has anybody had visitors who bring staff from outside Europe with them? If so, have there been problems related to visas? France does everything to discourage this situation, and I wonder if our visitors will bother coming to France again.
I did suggest to our visitors (British) from Thailand that they change their flighs to make Italy their point of entry into the Schengen zone, but I wonder if it would have been any easier?
They got a UK visa for their Thai maid without any problem.
The situation here is absurd: wanting a 2 week visa they were finally given one for 12 months.

Sorry can't help olive, but Italy in the last couple of years has tightened up it's laws on entry for non EU nationals that want to stay here. Whether this applies to those 'passing through' AND with their employers I wouldn't know.

Check out the Foreign Ministry website at esteri.it (also in En glish) there may be some indication.

Thanks, Pambon.
I think my mistake was in agreeing to help them. Several translations, email exchanges, & fruitless telephone calls have left me needing a Thai maid more than they do.

If they need the maid for a whole year round I can understand. Surely they can live without their Thai maid. Local maids can provide as good a service if not better because of her/his local know how !!!!!!.

Yes, I know, Camel. But it's not up to me to tell them what they need!

TC - to my knowledge we haven't had guests bring their staff, but it's clear that some of them do at home, going by the state the house is occasionally left in. There was one family who didn't get the broom out once in three weeks in our estimation!

Actually, there are two families with maid/au pair next to each other at the moment.
Amusingly (?), the British family with a Thai maid finds itself neighbours with a Thai lady + her German/Thai famlily and ... Canadian au pair.

I guess Canadians don't need a visa in France.

It is very rare that families bring help on holiday but it does happen from time to time. The help doesn't clean, though. It's been child-minding only up till now.

Olive. I understand what you are saying. Spme times in life we have to give a little jolt to our friends of realities & practicalities of life. If they are true friends they will look at your sincerity and not read further into it.