If you are working towards French nationality, the bar moved this year. Since 1 January 2026, applicants must prove a B2 level in French rather than the B1 required until the end of 2025, following décret n° 2025-648 of 15 July 2025. A separate civic knowledge exam also became compulsory on the same date.
I teach a steady stream of students preparing exactly this, and the change caught many of them mid-preparation. This guide sets out what actually changed, what B2 means concretely, and how the language requirement, the civic exam and the préfecture interview fit together, because they are three different things and people routinely confuse them.
Before you rely on this
Nationality rules change, and individual situations vary enormously. This article explains the requirements as a French teacher who prepares candidates for the language side of the process, not as legal advice. Always confirm your own case against service-public.fr or with your préfecture before making decisions.
What exactly changed on 1 January 2026?
| Requirement | Until 31 Dec 2025 | From 1 Jan 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| French language level | B1 oral | B2, oral and written |
| Civic knowledge exam | Not required | Compulsory multiple-choice exam |
| Assimilation interview | Required | Still required, in addition to the exam |
| Enic-Naric comparability statement | Accepted as proof | No longer accepted |
Two details catch people out. First, the change applies both to naturalisation par décret and to déclaration de nationalité par mariage. Second, and more painfully, it applies not only to applications filed after 1 January 2026 but also to incomplete files submitted before that date. If your dossier was still missing documents when the year turned, you are on the new rules.
The Enic-Naric point is worth flagging separately: that body stopped issuing comparability statements on 1 October 2025, and those statements ceased to count as proof of level from 1 January 2026. If your plan relied on a foreign diploma being recognised that way, it no longer works.
Which certificates prove B2?
There are two different routes, and the distinction between them matters more than most candidates realise.
A diploma. Any diploma certifying French at B2 or above is accepted, and for most candidates that means the DELF B2, or a DALF at C1 or C2. These are diplomas issued by France Éducation international on behalf of the French Ministry of Education, and their decisive advantage is that they never expire. Pass the DELF B2 once and you hold the proof for life.
A test attestation. The TCF (Test de connaissance du français) and the TEF (Test d'évaluation de français), in the versions designed for nationality applications, are also accepted, but the attestation must be less than two years old on the day your file is examined.
That single difference should drive your choice. Two years sounds generous until you meet the real timeline: préfecture appointments, document gathering, and the months a dossier spends being processed. Candidates whose attestation expires mid-procedure have to sit and pay for the test again. The DELF B2 takes more preparation, since it is a full four-skill exam with no adaptive shortcut, but you never have to think about it again.
Three points apply whichever route you take:
- Oral and written, in the same certification. The requirement now covers written French as well as oral, and you cannot combine an oral result from one certification with a written result from another. It has to be B2 across the board in a single diploma or test.
- Written production is the weak point. It is the skill you can avoid almost entirely while living in France, which is exactly why it is where most of my students at this stage lose marks.
- Exemptions exist. Applicants whose mother tongue is French, or who completed at least five years of schooling in a French-language institution, are exempt, as are certain candidates on medical grounds. Check your own case rather than assuming.
If you are weighing the DELF against the TCF more broadly, including for reasons beyond nationality, I have compared their formats and what each is good for in TCF vs DELF vs TEF: which French exam should you take.
What does B2 actually mean?
The jump from B1 to B2 is bigger than the single letter suggests. It is the point where French stops being something you cope with and becomes something you operate in.
At B1, you handle familiar situations: your work, your family, travel, shopping. You can explain a problem, follow a simple conversation and get by with effort. That was the old requirement, and it broadly meant "can live here".
At B2, you can follow a debate on the radio, argue a position and defend it, understand a newspaper article on an unfamiliar subject, and write a structured, coherent text of some length. You speak with enough spontaneity that a native speaker does not have to slow down. Concretely, B2 is roughly the level at which you could attend a parent-teacher meeting, contest an administrative decision in writing, or hold your own in a meeting where nobody is accommodating you.
In hours, the jump from a solid B1 to an exam-ready B2 typically takes several hundred hours of study for most learners, spread over a year or more of consistent work. I have set out realistic timelines in how long it really takes to learn French. The one thing I would say to anyone starting now: begin earlier than you think you need to, because the file itself takes months and the language does not accelerate to match.
The civic exam: what it involves
New since 1 January 2026, this is a computer-based multiple-choice test taken at an approved centre, separate from your language certificate and separate from the préfecture interview. Reported formats describe around 40 questions in roughly 45 minutes, covering four areas:
- The history of France
- The principles and institutions of the Republic
- The exercise of French citizenship, rights and duties
- France's place in Europe and the world
Pass marks, fees and booking procedures are set by the approved operators and have been reported inconsistently in the first months of the scheme, so check the current official terms before you book rather than trusting a summary, including this one.
The reference material is public. The charte des droits et devoirs du citoyen français, which you sign at the end of the process, and the official reference framework for the interview are both freely available, and they are the correct place to revise from.
The assimilation interview: a conversation, not a test
The entretien d'assimilation takes place at your préfecture with an agent, lasts around 30 to 45 minutes, and is conducted entirely in French. It has always been part of the process and remains so alongside the new exam.
It is not an oral exam with a mark. The agent is assessing whether you are integrated into the French community: your knowledge of French history, values and institutions, and your own trajectory. Expect questions in two registers, and prepare both.
Quels sont les symboles de la République française ?
Que signifie la devise « Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité » ?
Qu'est-ce que la laïcité ?
Pourquoi souhaitez-vous devenir français ou française ?
Parlez-moi de votre parcours en France.
Quelles sont vos attaches avec la France ?
The factual questions are revisable. The personal ones are the ones students underprepare, and they are where the language load is heaviest, because you are asked to narrate your own life across several tenses under pressure: the passé composé and imparfait for what happened, the présent for your situation now, the futur and conditionnel for your plans. If that mix is shaky, it will show. My guides to passé composé vs imparfait and futur simple vs conditionnel cover exactly the ground this question demands.
Practical advice from students who have been through it: rehearse your own story out loud, in French, until it is fluent. You know the content perfectly. What fails on the day is the delivery, when nerves plus an unfamiliar setting turn a story you have told a hundred times in your own language into hesitant French.
How to prepare, in order
- Assess your real level honestly. Not what you think it is, and not what a free online quiz says. A B2 examiner and a friendly conversation partner measure very different things.
- Fix written production first. It is the skill most people at this stage have neglected, and the one the new requirement added.
- Build the vocabulary the exams actually test. B2 topics are abstract: society, environment, work, media, health, education. That is a different vocabulary from daily-life French.
- Choose your proof deliberately. The DELF B2 is a diploma that never expires; a TCF or TEF attestation has to be under two years old when your file is examined. If your procedure is likely to run long, the diploma is the safer investment.
- Revise the civic material from official sources, not from summaries.
- Rehearse the interview aloud, ideally with someone who will interrupt you and ask follow-up questions.
One more thing worth saying plainly. This process is demanding, and the 2026 changes made it more so. But B2 is not an arbitrary hurdle invented to keep people out: it is close to the level at which you stop translating your life and start living it in French, and not only in France, since the same certificate opens a language shared by 396 million speakers across 29 countries. Most students who reach it tell me the same thing, which is that the exam turned out to be the smaller of the two prizes.