About | Sarah Latrille

How it started

I fell in love with France my freshman year of high school in Ohio, somewhere between conjugating verbs in Mme. Arbogast’s class and realizing I was genuinely obsessed with a country I’d never been to. By senior year I was there, placed with the Garches Rotary Club and attending high school in Saint-Cloud, a quiet town just west of Paris. That year, 2002, I was done for, Paris had me completely.

I went home, went to culinary school, built a career in hospitality and baking and pastry, and life moved on the way it does. But France never really left. Fifteen years after my exchange, I was back for the wedding of my best friend from that year abroad, and at her wedding in 2017, I met Thomas.

We got married in 2019. In March 2020, two weeks before France went into confinement, I moved to France permanently. And somewhere in the middle of navigating lockdown in a new country, in a new language, with a stack of administrative paperwork I had absolutely no roadmap for, A Buckeye in Paris was born.

What this site is

I started this blog because I was looking for answers and couldn’t find them. The information existed somewhere, but it was scattered across government websites written in dense administrative French, outdated forum posts, and well-meaning guides that didn’t quite match my situation. I wanted to create something I wished had existed when I arrived: a practical, honest, regularly updated resource for Americans navigating life in France.

Five years in, that’s still exactly what this is. Every guide on this site comes from personal experience, I’ve been through the VLS-TS, OFII visits, titre de séjour renewals, the TCF IRN language exam, the 10-year carte de resident application, and French nationality by marriage. I became a French citizen in 2024. My daughter was born in a French hospital. Thomas is French. This is my life, and this site is where I document it honestly.

The rules change constantly and significantly. The January 2026 immigration law changes alone affected language requirements, civic exam obligations, and fee structures across the board. When things change, I update. That’s the commitment.

The part that still gets me

I did my high school exchange in Saint-Cloud. I now live in Saint-Cloud. I attended high school here as a seventeen-year-old American who could barely order a coffee without panicking. I now hold French citizenship, speak the language, raise a daughter here, and run a blog helping other Americans do what I did, find their footing in a country that is equal parts maddening and magnificent.

France has a way of getting into your bones. Twenty-four years after that first exchange, I can confirm: it doesn’t let go.

Beyond the blog

In addition to writing, I run a freelance administrative practice serving two audiences: small food businesses in Paris navigating French admin (including the 2026 e-invoicing reform), and expats and immigrants who need help understanding or managing the French administrative process. The work I do on the blog, translating dense French bureaucracy into plain, actionable English, is exactly what I do one-on-one with clients.

I’m also the founder of La Sororité Network, a community initiative organizing monthly Afterwork events for women in France. This community is on haitus until I can fully focus on cultivating it. And I write a free monthly Substack digest called Housekeeping, covering French administrative changes and what’s worth knowing each month for an English-speaking audience.

If you’re a journalist, podcast host, or writer working on something where an American-turned-French-citizen perspective would be useful, I’m available for press and media inquiries. Head to the Work With Me page for the full picture.

Find me

Instagram: @abuckeyeinparis — timely updates, rule changes, and life in the Paris suburbs

Substack: Housekeeping — free monthly digest

Email: coucou@abuckeyeinparis.com

Work With Me: Press, podcast, and freelance inquiries