The examen civique — 40 questions, 32 correct answers to pass
4 min read
Since 1 January 2026, passing the examen civique is a condition in its own right for a first carte de séjour pluriannuelle, a first carte de résident, and a naturalisation application. It is not a language exam: it is a questionnaire about France, sat in French.
Information verified on 12 August 2026, from the arrêté of 10 October 2025 (programme, épreuves and organisation), CESEDA art. R. 413-12-1 and D. 413-12-2, and the official Ministère de l’Intérieur site
formation-civique.interieur.gouv.fr. Confirm the arrangements with your accredited centre before registering.
The format, in one table
| Questions | 40 |
| Type | multiple choice, 4 options, exactly one correct answer |
| Composition | 28 knowledge questions + 12 situational questions |
| Marking | 1 point per correct answer; 0 points for a wrong answer and 0 for a blank — no negative marking |
| Time | 45 minutes maximum (extended only with a medical accommodation) |
| Pass mark | 32/40, i.e. 80 % |
| Delivery | digital (tablet or computer), sittings from 08:00 to 20:00 |
| Retakes | unlimited, with no waiting period |
| Validity of the attestation | never expires |
| Accredited operators | CCI Paris Île-de-France and France Éducation international |
Two practical consequences follow directly from those rules:
- Never leave a question blank. A wrong answer and a blank both score exactly 0, so there is nothing to lose by guessing.
- Sit it early. Retakes are unlimited with no waiting period, and the attestation never expires — unlike language certifications, which are valid for 2 years.
The three mentions, and which one to sit
The examen civique comes in three mentions: carte de séjour pluriannuelle, carte de résident and naturalisation. CESEDA art. R. 413-12-1 states that passing the exam with the « carte de résident » mention also satisfies the carte de séjour pluriannuelle condition. The text does not differentiate the content between mentions.
The programme: five themes, with fixed weights
The arrêté of 10 October 2025 fixes how many of the 40 questions come from each theme:
| Theme | Questions |
|---|---|
| Principles and values of the Republic | 11 |
| Rights and duties of life in France | 11 |
| History, geography and culture | 8 |
| Institutional and political system | 6 |
| Living in French society | 4 |
| Total | 40 |
The first two themes are 22 of the 40 questions — that is where most of your revision time belongs.
The official questions are public, and free
The Ministère de l’Intérieur publishes the official knowledge-question lists itself, at formation-civique.interieur.gouv.fr, under licence Etalab 2.0 (reuse permitted, including commercially, with attribution). Counted directly from those pages on 12 August 2026: 172 questions for the carte de séjour pluriannuelle mention and 189 for the carte de résident mention. No list is published for the naturalisation mention.
A few examples, exactly as they appear on the official list — the register is short and factual, readable at A2:
- « À quoi correspond la date du 14 juillet ? »
- « Quelle est la devise de la République française ? »
- « Qui nomme le Premier ministre ? »
- « Jusqu’à quel âge l’école est-elle obligatoire ? »
What is not published: the four answer options, the correct answer, and the 12 situational questions. So, plainly: we start from the ministry's official question stems and write the four options, the explanations and the practice situations ourselves, from the official référentiel and the civic-training fiches published on the same site. We do not hold the real bank of situational questions, and we do not claim to. Source of the stems: Ministère de l’Intérieur, licence Etalab 2.0 — which of course implies no accreditation or endorsement of our site by the ministry.
Two warnings
1. No official pass rate exists. Neither the Ministère de l’Intérieur nor the accredited operators publish pass statistics for the examen civique. Figures of the "72 % pass rate among 23,400 candidates" kind, seen on several sites, trace back to no verifiable source. We will not publish any.
2. The ministry warns against paid preparation sites, which « ne sont pas gérés par le ministère, présentent des risques de fraude et peuvent contenir de fausses informations ». That is one reason our examen civique practice is free, states plainly where the question stems come from, and links back to the official resources.
Practising
Our free practice sitting includes a full 40-question paper in the examen civique format, carte de séjour pluriannuelle mention, with immediate marking and an explanation for every answer. The language half of the preparation is covered in TCF IRN or DELF A2.
Worth repeating: passing the examen civique does not exempt you from proving A2, and vice versa. They are two separate conditions of CESEDA art. L. 433-4 — see the A2 requirement for the carte de séjour pluriannuelle. And if you think you may be exempt, check first: the exemptions.