I am an Indian citizen based in the UK. I intend to make a series of trips to France in the next few months, but firstly, I intend to visit the Netherlands in April. In keeping with the rules in the Schengen handbook, I had applied for a multiple entry visa at the French consulate through TLS.
However my visa was refused, with the reason that my main destination was the Netherlands. This goes against the rule in the Schengen handbook, and the TLS authorities were also saying stuff that went against the guidelines in the handbook.
The exact example relevant to my case in the visa handbook:
Example: A Senegalese national regularly visits her family in France but also travels to other Member States for business purposes once or twice per year. The destination of her first journey is Switzerland.
In this case the French consulate should deal with the application because it will be the most frequent destination.
Due to this unfair refusal, I am losing out on a lot of money - the travel costs to the Netherlands, the trips to London for the visa process, and the accommodation charges. We are depressed that in spite of following the Schengen rulebook to the letter and spirit, due to the ignorance of the consulate officials, we have had to lose out on so much money.
We have an appeal process, but is it possible for us to get compensated for these losses too? We are not keen on a situation where we simply get the visa again without any monetary compensation.
Also is there any UK-based legal recourse for us? Or can we only appeal in France, through the CRRV, as mentioned in this site?
