So you got off your plane, have a reservation in a CROUS residence and hope to get to your place soon? Forget it. There are a lot of formal obstacles to that. Depending on the level of external help getting into your room may take from a day up to a week. Here we go with a procedure that worked for me.
1. Attestation from residence
The funny thing - the first place to come to is actually the residence. But all you can get here now is a bunch of papers. The important one is called Attestation de residence.
Take into account, that you must come before 16:00. That's when the office closes. The office itself is located between buildings A and B, more or less in the middle of the whole residence.
2. Bank
Now, it's your time to go and open a bank account. Note that you should arrange a meeting preferably before coming to France. The whole procedure is described elsewhere. Two things to note: you will have to sign a ton of paper and you will receive nothing important on site...
3. Go somewhere else
You can't spend the night in your room. However, you still have to pay the full month... Anyhow, you need some temporary lodging. I chose the CIV, as it's cheap and near the bank.
4. Bank again
The morning after you should get to the bank. Now you can receive your insurance certificate. This is the paper that made me sleep the night in the CIV.
However, the other thing you need to have before getting the keys is a check for 670EUR. If you want to sign one by yourself, you'll need another week for your checkbook to arrive. But it's OK if someone else does it for you...
5. Moving in
Finally you can get in. Remember the papers you got in the first step? Among them is a two page form. Don't struggle to fill it in - it should be done by the administration and only signed by you. You will also receive an inventory form you should give back in a couple of days.
6. Lights out?
Annoying thing - on entering you may find that water and/or electricity is not connected. Even if it is, you still need to call EDF and LDE to register (or they'll cut you out). If you had the bad luck of getting into the darkness, you may have to wait for 3 days before it gets fixed. Nice?
