Vietnamese student, seeking advice on Schengen visa

[tky_van]

Dear all,

Sorry if this post is in the wrong place but I have found this forum very informative and useful thus I would be very grateful someone might help me with some advices on this issue. I apologise in advance for this lengthy message.

I am a Vietnamese national and about to finish my Master degree at Liverpool University. My UK visa will expire on 31/01/2009, which means I have more than 4-month stay remaining. My wife (Vietnamese national too) is currently staying with me here and has exactly the same UK visa expiry day.

We plan to visit a number of countries including France and Italy in October for 10 days but unfortunately our Schengen visa to France was just denied. According to French law, no reason was given although I have included all the necessary documentations (flight tickets, hotel booking, travel insurance, financial proof, student status and many other stuff). Somehow the Vietnameses elsewhere have created a bad reputation and our documents were not strong enough to persuade the Consulate personnels that we don't have the intention to stay in France illegally.

My question is: SHOULD I NOW APPLY FOR A SCHENGEN VISA THROUGH THE ITALIAN EMBASSY?

We have paid 95 GBPs to the French consulate and it is non-refundable. For the Italian one, we may risk loosing another 95GBPs without having the visas too. This is quite a fortune for us students.

DO YOU THINK IT IS WORTH TRYING AGAIN or MY CASE IS TOO WEAK TO TRY? I suppose the Consulate personnels think the 4-month remaining in the UK is probably too short.

We've got a stamp in our passport saying that the French Consulate has received the form on 12/09/2008. In other words, this stamp implicitly indicates we have been refused Schengen visa once.
DOES THIS GREATLY AFFECT OUR FUTURE SCHENGEN APPLICATION?

One final detail, we have bought the flight tickets for our journey home back to Vietnam in January 2009. If you think we should apply through the Italian Embassy, should we include these tickets in the application to show that we will definitely go back to Vietnam after returning to UK?

Thanks very much if anyone can help. We really admire the beauty of France and Italy and want to visit these two countries before the grim winter comes.

Regards,
Van - From Liverpool