Comment by Grombobulous

As I suspected, you named the service and it turns out the service has completely reasonable alternatives and/or has very good reasons to require higher security requirements.

First off, waiting up to 4 weeks for these services is not some form of second class citizenry. If my passport application process took 4 weeks in the USA I would be ecstatic.

Second, FranceConnect+ requires higher identity verification, and this higher level of verification is only used for a small subset of specific government services in France, such as the vocational training program, where French citizens can have training paid for by the government. It's very understandable that you'd need higher level identity verification for that to reduce fraud.

Unlike your assertion, there is actually a PC-based identity verification alternative for at least some of the underlying services where you use a webcam, identity number, and ID documents, and then there's also the physical mail option. FranceConnect+ is akin to a single sign on style service to access some of those underlying services with more convenience. Being unable to access FranceConnect+ is not inability to access those services.

FranceConnect+ is only used for 9 services compared to the total 1,800 services offered in FranceConnect:

- Vocational training (CPF)

- Company creation and filings (INPI)

- Applying for energy renovation grant (ANAH)

- Hospital patient data (AP-HP portal)

- Online passport renewal (again, we do this in the US by mail and it takes 4+ weeks)

- Qualified registered letters (AR24)

- National pharmaceutical records (eIDAS)

- Signature/trust service (eIDAS)

- eIDAS interoperability service