Applying for a Schengen visa when there is a gap between trips to main destination and country of entry

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In principle, I don't see how this could lead to a refusal, i.e. a negative decision. I don't see any basis for that in the regulation and can't see what refusal reason would apply. On the other hand, it's perfectly reasonable for the consulate to refuse to regard this as a single trip. You are kind of stretching the definition of a trip to save yourself a bit of trouble and they don't really have to go along with this.

But, in my view, the logical conclusion would then be to either issue a visa for the French part of the plan only or to decline to consider the application at all (because the French consulate is not competent for trips to Spain). In the latter case, you would not get any visa but should get your application fee and all your documents back and could reapply immediately, with no prejudice. That's very different from a refusal.

Finally, the bit about a "gap under three months" you heard from your friend is at most an informal tolerance from those embassies. The actual rules (i.e. the Schengen visa code) do not differ between embassies and say nothing about that. They mostly deal with single trips. Implicitly, if you want to do another trip and you don't have a multiple-entry visa, then you simply have to apply for a fresh visa.

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