I promise that I’m going to tell you all about how hard I botched my French citizenship interview, because boy, did I ever botch it.
The story is long, painful, and confusing, so writing is slow-going. I noticed my brain began to erase all the memories of that one-hour interaction as soon as I returned home: the order of questions, the questions themselves; it’s all quite fuzzy now thanks to my subconscious trying to hide the trauma from my conscious mind.
So yeah, taking a while to dig everything back up, write it down, and make it entertaining for y’all.
Until then, just know that the interview went worse than I’d ever imagined it could. The only way I can describe it is: bloodbath. This, even though I prepped, studied, researched, and felt reasonably confident going into it, mixed with a normal amount of anxiousness. I was anxious there would be a curveball that I couldn’t handle. Maybe my agent would ask for documents I hadn’t brought or couldn’t procure. Maybe she’d ask me about parts of French history I didn’t know. She did all of that and much more, which I’ll tell you all about soon (I promise I’m not being coy, I just have to wait for the mushrooms and hip releasing exercises to help me access the trapped traumatic memories).
But until then, there are still lessons to be learned! Oral histories to be shared! If I’m denied citizenship and shunned for forgetting simple French facts, it will be more than worth it if I can help some other poor soul prepare for their citizenship interview.
And I’m not talking about what to study; you can find that with a quick Google search. I’m talking about how to prepare emotionally and existentially, because that’s where I was found wanting. I had plenty of answers committed to memory, but how can that memory work after a cerebral assault by an impatient mean girl who wanted me to fail? That was my problem. After a few minutes of interrogation, her techniques made my brain glitch, and I wasn’t able to scrabble together answers to even the simplest questions. She intimidated me into a puddle of bad pronunciation and worse conjugation, and I still haven’t recovered. Is it her fault for being mean, or my fault for being emotionally gelatinous? Who can say?
Caveat for my torturess: Look, it must be a really hard and unhappy job grilling immigrants day in and day out, deciding if they meet the criteria to become citizens. I’m sure my agent was just doing her job as thoroughly as she could, and her brand of thorough just happened to be the absolute worst fit for my particular neuroses. Let’s just assume we both did our best that day, but our lack of chemistry led to a lot of frustration for her and tears for me.
Learn from my pain, go forth and succeed where I could not. And when you do, please avenge me.
Print Every Document You Need, And Also Every Document You Don’t
There are several official lists of required documents on the Prefecture website and the Foreigners in France website, all of which I downloaded and followed closely. My prefecture summons also instructed me to bring every document in my dossier and a few other recent documents. There’s a lot of overlap on these checklists of requirements, and also a lot of inconsistencies, but that doesn’t matter because you’re just going to bring EVERYTHING.
I brought every document I submitted in January of 2023, plus copies, plus the same version of those documents dated January 2024. I brought cable bills, phone bills, gas bills, creche bills, rent receipts from two different abodes, and random envelopes that happened to bear my name and my husband’s name. I brought screenshots of emails, proof of income from periods not even of interest to my agent, and hospital records for my baby.
In the end, my agent asked for none of these. She asked for a very specific proof of income from a specific French agency, and I didn’t have it. I didn’t even know what document she was referring to. No prefecture list of required documents mentioned this document. I still don’t know what the document was; she said she’d email me a formal request for it, and she still hasn’t.
But, ladies and gentlemen, that is on ME. I should have known to bring documents that weren’t listed. I should have known to bring documents I didn’t know existed. I sat in front of my dossier and ask myself, “What document aren’t you thinking of?” but apparently, I didn’t disassociate far enough into the void to retrieve the answer. So just make sure that you print everything you can think to print, and everything you can’t think of, too.
Dates Aren’t Important
While the French civics class you take as part of your integration stresses dates of historical events and the civics pamphlet stresses dates, and every other person is asked dates in their citizenship interview, dates were not important in my interview. In fact, they were frowned upon.
Whenever my agent asked me to tell her about something, I’d begin with the date. Seemed logical to me. She HATED this.
I kicked off my ode to the French Revolution by mentioning 1789. She winced. When asked about la laïcité, I began by saying the law was established in 1905. She cut me off before I could continue. “No, not that. Tell me about it” she said. I thought that’s what I was doing, but what do I and the French civics pamphlet know?
So don’t bother memorizing that the Third Republic, the first of the stable republics, was established in 1870.
Or that freedom of the press was established in 1880.
The dates of World War I (1914-1918) are as irrelevant as the dates of WWII (1939-1945).
The Fifth Republic, the one we’re in now, dates to 1958, but who cares? Certainly not the lady interviewing me. BTW, the first president of the Fifth Republic was Charles de Gaulle, but that might not be important to know, either.
If you happen to have any of these important dates already committed to memory because you attended school at any point in your life or happen to watch historical fiction mini series, just don’t let your agent know, lest they get annoyed like mine did.
Prepare Two-Word Answers
My hubris caused me to think that my agent might be interested in hearing me speak French in full sentences. I read in the accounts of others’ citizenship interviews that they were asked questions about why they wanted to become French, how they spent their time, and what activities they did with their French spouse, so I brainstormed answers to these so that I wouldn’t get caught up on vocabulary or conjugations. I mean, I can also improvise responses in French at this point, but I was trying to eliminate any chance of being blindsided. I practised in full sentences, sometimes even multiple sentences.
That just goes to show how dumb I am. My agent made clear that only two-word responses are welcome. For example, when she asked what activities my husband and I did together, I began saying “well, since the baby…” but she cut me off to insist on a shorter answer of activities we did together before the baby. I then listed verbs: cooking, hiking, surfing—boom, another machete mid-sentence, hacking my answer to ask where we surfed. I provided two locations, after which she clearly stopped listening, began to type, and then cut in with another question.
So yeah, don’t let the language requirements of the B1 level of French fool you (to clarify, B1 for spouses, B2 for individuals), you can totally get by with the A1 ability to rattle off a few nouns and verbs. Any more is apparently TMI.
Follow The News
I actually got this part right. I do listen to France Inter almost every morning, and I follow French news accounts online. I also keep up with what’s going on in my arrondissement, the 12th, and have gone as far as to download and peruse the presentations they share at town hall meetings so that I know all the hot goss in the douzieme.
My agent didn’t ask for me to elaborate to this degree. She had more of a rhetorical question, which she posed as: “Don’t you even follow any French news?!?” when I didn’t know the answer to one of her questions. I was able to honestly choke out a “Yes, I listen to France Inter—” before she interrupted me again. I know she didn’t actually want a response to that one, but at least I could confidently say that, yes, I do follow French news, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Memorize The Name And Role of Every French Minister
See, my arrogant ass thought it would be sufficient to memorize five ministers and the Prime Minister. That seemed sufficient, especially given that three different governments have been appointed in the last few months. It wasn’t altogether straightforward to find an updated, correct list since all these ministers began playing musical chairs. But the one she asked for I had forgotten, and she was none too impressed that I knew the names and roles of several others. Don’t tell those five that they’re not even worth one of the other guy.
So yeah, study all the ministers and hope that the government doesn’t get dissolved again before your interview.
Bring Water
Being in a poorly lit, poorly decorated, unfriendly room across the desk from someone who hates you can make a girl thirsty as hell. I had both of my parents’ translated, notarized birth certificates in my bag, but not a drop of water. My teeth began sticking to my lips, and my pronunciation went downhill because I couldn’t move my mouth very easily. This, even though I was only allowed to speak two words at a time. I don’t care if bringing a large water bottle makes you look American, you’re going to need it.
Don’t Overthink It
This doesn’t mean what you think it means. I’m not saying not to worry, agonize, anticipate, or study for the interview. You should do that. I’m saying that in the room, in the moment, don’t spend any time thinking. That’s because thinking creates pauses, and pauses are apparently frowned upon.
My agent didn’t like my pauses. I would pause to consider my answer to her questions, especially some of the very abstract ones I didn’t think I’d have to face, and then consider if I knew how to respond in French, if it was a good answer given the gravity of this interview—I needed a few seconds here or there to think. She’d fume at me and ask a different question. We’re talking maybe three seconds here: interdit.
My agent didn’t really like to maintain eye contact as I spoke, which made things worse. She was usually staring at her computer screen or rolling her eyes, both of which made it hard for me to know when to answer her. Was she listening to me? Should I wait for her to stop typing? Should I stare into the distance? I spent most of the time craning my neck to try to meet her eye, or looking at the side of her ancient gray computer monitor, both of which killed my self esteem and nervous system.
So yeah, just say whatever pops into your head so as not to anger your interviewer. It’s not like this is likely the single most important interview of your life, why would you need to think so hard?
Endurance Training
How are you with pain? Both physical and emotional? It might be useful to get your endurance up so that you can keep your mind clear and energy strong in the face of bureaucratic malice.
I was a fool to think that I would be able to keep my wits about me while answering questions I had studied for and questions about my own life. After less than ten minutes I was a quivering ball of raw emotions that my agent proceeded to overkill until we’d hit our time limit. Whatever grit, stamina, strength I had was all spent before we even got to the history questions.
Maybe it’s some cold water plunges or hot coal walking. Maybe a little self-flagellation or sleep deprivation could help you endure the barbs to come. The most efficient option (also the tidiest), is to just have someone tell you over and over that you’re wrong, that your situation is complicated, that you aren’t prepared, that you don’t know anything. Do this until the words have no meaning, that way they can’t affect you when you hear them in that gloomy, gray office where love of France turns to sorrow.
Abandon Hope
I think my biggest mistake was that I felt somewhat hopeful going into this thing, which made it all the more painful to realize, moment by moment, that this thing was not going well. Even before brushing up on French history and politics for the interview, I had studied French history, art, and literature for years in school. I read French authors, attend art exhibits, follow the news, not because I “should” but because I genuinely enjoy them. I have an authentic and genuine love and respect of the country, its culture, its history, and (many of) the ways it treats its people, especially relative to my own country. Put all of it together, and how could this RDV possibly shake out to be a disaster?
See that right there? That’s some American-ass logic.
“I worked hard and care about this and I just know it will all work out okay!” said no French person ever. No, the way you attack a problem in France is first to say that it. is. not. possible. Once that is out of the way, you start to chip away at the problem petit a petit, the whole time still believing that resolution is not possible, even as your very actions prove otherwise. Nary a twinge of hope shall enter your heart. Finally, you arrive at a solution, prove to yourself that it was possible all along. You undersell your accomplishment and never speak of it again because bragging is vulgar.
That’s the spirit I should have brought into this thing. If I showed up expecting to fail, my nervous system wouldn’t have entered fight or flight as soon as my agent started to treat me like a naughty child. I could have stayed calm and maybe even felt better about the stuff I got right instead of be devastated whenever I forgot an answer or got cut off by the human spirit breaker.
And So…
The irony, as you may have inferred, is that I don’t think you can actually prepare. Yes of course, you can and should memorize the French civics pamphlet cover to cover. Memorize every French president and prime minister. Be ready to talk about French artists, authors, philosophers, and musicians. Follow French news, which I doubt I even need to say because if you’re reading this you’re clearly literate, have amazing taste, and patronize only the highest calibre of journalism. But there’s no way to prepare for the nihilism that is bureaucracy, least of all the French kind. And if you’re American, your penchant for optimism is only going to get in the way.
In fact, maybe my agent was doing me a service by holding a mirror up to my Americanness, showing me that it was standing in the way of me truly and meaningfully integrating into France. What’s optimism and a stack of flash cards in the face of a devastating eye roll, constant interruptions, and thirst? Nothing, you American dork, now go eat a hot dog on the back of an eagle and wash it down with a giant glass of ice water. Madame has a scathing report to type up.
Introducing Contributor, Selby Chambers
Immerse yourself in all of Selby’s articles on his Contributor page.