The official material: the fiches, the published questions and the livret du citoyen, all free

Three official documents, and what each one is for

Most countries publish a syllabus and leave you to find something that covers it. France publishes the syllabus, the material that covers it and a large part of the questions, on two government sites, and none of it costs anything.

The first is formation-civique.interieur.gouv.fr. It carries the programme of the exam and the fiches par thématiques, one set for each of the five thématiques of the référentiel. The ministry told the Assemblée nationale in August 2026 that the site holds 222 fiches thématiques. It is the material both the knowledge questions and the mises en situation are written from.

The second is the published question list. Article 3 of the arrêté of 10 October 2025 requires the questions de connaissances to be made public on the ministry's site, and the Direction générale des étrangers en France publishes the list for the mention naturalisation as a PDF dated 12 January 2026. The 28 knowledge questions on your paper come from it.

The third is the livret du citoyen. It is older than the exam and it has a different job: it sets out, in the ministry's words, les connaissances et valeurs attendues des candidats à la naturalisation, and it is the document to study before the entretien in the préfecture or consulate. It is referred to in article 37 of the décret of 30 December 1993 that governs naturalisation, and its current edition was approved by an arrêté of 3 July 2026.

What the ministry says about cost and sources

The sentences below are on formation-civique.interieur.gouv.fr, under the heading Information importante.

• La préparation à l'examen civique peut se faire de manière totalement gratuite.
• Il n'est pas nécessaire de payer pour accéder à des questions ou à des tests d'entraînement.
• Privilégiez toujours les sources officielles et gratuites.
• The site itself is described as un site d'informations ouvert à tous entièrement gratuit.
• The livret du citoyen and the arrêté that approves it are both downloadable as PDFs from immigration.interieur.gouv.fr, at no charge.

The 2026 livret, and why the date on the cover matters

• The Direction générale des étrangers en France announced a new version of the livret du citoyen on 16 July 2026, under the heading Mise à jour du livret du citoyen.
• The new version is approved by an arrêté of 3 July 2026, portant approbation du livret du citoyen mentionné à l'article 37 du décret du 30 décembre 1993.
• The ministry's page for the livret gives two dates: first published 12 January 2026, updated 16 July 2026.
• The file the ministry publishes is titled Livret du citoyen, juillet 2026.
• The ministry does not publish a list of what changed against the previous edition. It publishes the new livret and the arrêté approving it.
• A PDF of the livret that circulated before July 2026 describes an edition that is no longer the approved one.

How the three fit together when you study

The fiches are the syllabus and the published list is a large part of the paper. Working through the fiches by thématique and then testing yourself on the list is the whole of the official preparation, and it is what the ministry recommends.

The livret du citoyen overlaps with the fiches but is not a substitute for them. It was written for the entretien d'assimilation, which still takes place after the exam, and it is the document the préfecture expects you to know when you sit that interview. Read it for the interview and read the fiches for the paper.

Practice questions written by anyone other than the ministry, Belong France's included, are practice on the same material, in the same shape. They are not the questions. The published list is, and it is free.

More on the examen civique

• Examen civiqueSample questions and what the exam is
• The 40 questionsForty multiple choice questions on a screen, forty-five minutes at most and a pass mark of thirty-two.
• Booking, fee and centresTwo organisations are approved to run the exam, you book on demand rather than waiting for a session date, you can sit as many times as it takes and the attestation de réussite never expires.
• Who is exemptTwo conditions and two short lists, and neither is about age or nationality.
• After the examA pass gives you an attestation de réussite that never expires.
• Practice paperNot a random selection.

See all French nationality requirements

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