French Examen Civique 2026: Free Practice Questions by Theme

What is the examen civique and who has to take it?

The examen civique is the civic exam introduced for French naturalisation, in force since 1 January 2026. Candidates applying for French nationality sit a 40-question multiple-choice test with four options per question: 28 knowledge questions drawn from an official list plus 12 situational questions (mises en situation), all answered within 45 minutes. The pass mark is 32 correct answers out of 40, which is 80 percent, a noticeably higher bar than most civic tests in Europe. The knowledge questions are not a secret: the Ministère de l'Intérieur publishes the full official list, and its question base is reusable under the Licence Ouverte 2.0 (Etalab) open licence via data.gouv.fr. That changes how you should prepare. Instead of guessing what might come up, you can work through the exact pool the exam draws from, theme by theme, until none of it can surprise you.

Why study by official theme, not at random

The official list of 258 knowledge questions is organised into five themes, and they are not equally sized. History, geography and culture is by far the largest, with 83 of the 258 official questions, so it deserves the biggest share of your revision time. The institutional and political system comes next with 55 questions, then living in French society with 44, principles and values of the Republic with 39, and rights and duties with 37. Studying by theme also matches how the knowledge actually connects: the 1905 law on secularism belongs with laïcité and the values of the Republic, the difference between deputies and senators belongs with the institutions, and the five-day deadline to declare a birth belongs with everyday life in France. Each theme guide below explains the ideas in English, then lets you try real questions from that theme in French, the language you will face on exam day.

The six practice sets on this hub

Each guide below explains its theme in plain English, gives you a comparison table for the points candidates confuse, answers the questions applicants actually ask, and serves free practice questions drawn from the same 516-question bank that powers our offline app:

• Principles and values of the Republic: the motto, the official symbols, Marianne, and laïcité with the 1905 law.
• The institutional and political system: the President, the Prime Minister, Parliament, elections, local government and the European Union.
• Rights and duties: the 1789 Declaration, fundamental freedoms and their limits, and the duties of every resident.
• History, geography and culture: the biggest theme, from 1789 to the Fifth Republic, plus regions, overseas France and cultural figures.
• Living in French society: the mairie, health cover, work, school and the emergency numbers.
• Bonus mixed training set: 258 extra original questions that reshuffle all five themes so you stop memorising answer positions.

The exam is in French. Should you practise in French?

Yes, and there is no way around it. The examen civique is administered entirely in French, and naturalisation also requires proof of French language ability, so practising translated questions would train you for a test that does not exist. That is why every practice question on these pages appears verbatim in French, with the official wording preserved. If your French is still developing, the structure helps: the questions are short, factual and multiple choice, and the same vocabulary (République, laïcité, suffrage, mandat, devise) repeats across the whole list. Our app pairs each French question with explanations written in both French and English, so you can check your understanding in English while your eye gets used to the French phrasing. Read the English theme guides on these pages first, then attempt the French questions; most candidates find the language barrier shrinks quickly because the underlying facts are the same in any language.

How to use these pages, and what to trust

Start with your weakest theme, or with history, geography and culture simply because it carries the most questions. Work the free questions on each page to locate the gaps, read the explanation under every answer even when you got it right, and come back to the comparison tables the day before the exam: they compress the confusable pairs (deputies versus senators, official symbols versus popular emblems, contravention versus délit versus crime) into a form you can hold in your head. The free questions here are a sample of the full bank of 516 questions, which combines the complete official list of 258 knowledge questions with 258 original training questions, each carrying a source reference to the passage or theme it was written from. Every answer was checked through a cross-model quality gate, with a second independent AI model confirming that the recorded answer is supported by the cited material. The facts on this hub come from the official question list and were last reviewed on 2026-07-13. For application procedure, dates and fees, always verify against the official site, formation-civique.interieur.gouv.fr, before you act.