We have been living permanently in France for over 7 years, but do not have residence permits. We still have property in the UK, but the travel operator we are looking at says it takes up to 4 weeks for them to process UK visa applications and we are never in the UK for that length of time (and would obviously need our passports to travel to and from France). Can we still get residence permits after all this time, or is there an alternative way of doing this?