I first moved to France in my twenties. Paris. I didn’t plan to stay long.
That was almost 20 years ago.
The Long Road Home
I spent about 10 years in Paris. Then life took me elsewhere — a year and a half in Denmark, extended stretches in Asia. Bali. Malaysia. Thailand. I’ve never been good at staying put.
But I kept coming back to France.
Now I’m in Biarritz, on the Basque coast. Surf towns have a way of making you want to stay. So does the food. So do the people.
Somewhere along the way, France stopped being a place I lived and became home.
Brexit Changed Everything
When the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016, I was watching from Paris.
The negotiations dragged on until 2021. During that time, I held a British passport and lived in a country that was slowly becoming… foreign? It’s hard to describe. The rules hadn’t changed yet, but the feeling had.
I’ve written before about optionality in times of volatility. The world is going through a geopolitical and technological earthquake right now. AI is rewriting entire industries. Borders are being redrawn — sometimes literally, sometimes just in terms of who’s welcome where.
A European passport is a powerful thing. Freedom to live and work across 27 countries. Access to healthcare, education, a safety net. The ability to stay in a place you’ve called home for two decades without wondering if the rules will change again.
This isn’t about abandoning where I came from. It’s about securing where I am.
Why France
I’ve lived in enough places to know what I value.
The French have a way of being human that I haven’t found elsewhere. They take lunch seriously. They argue about ideas. They protest when something isn’t fair — and they usually win.
They’ve also been through things. Revolutions, wars, occupations, economic crises. There’s a resilience here that comes from having faced real challenges and come out the other side with values intact.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité. It’s not just words on buildings. It’s how people actually think about society.
I seem to get on well with the French. That might be the most important thing of all.
The Exam
To become French, you have to pass a civic exam. 40 questions, 45 minutes, 80% to pass.
The questions cover history, institutions, values, daily life:
- When was the Declaration of the Rights of Man written?
- What does laïcité mean?
- Who elects the President?
- What are the responsibilities of a citizen?
The government publishes a list of official questions. Hundreds of them. But there’s no good way to actually practice. Just scattered PDFs and outdated websites.
So I did what I always do: I built something.
Coco Tricolore
I made a Telegram bot that quizzes you in the exact format of the real exam. Multiple choice, timed, randomized. 350+ questions covering everything you need to know.
I built it for myself first. Then I realised: 300,000 people take this exam every year.
That’s the thing about living in the age of AI. You can solve your own problem in the morning and help thousands of other people with the same problem by the afternoon. The leverage is absurd.
If you’re going through naturalisation — or know someone who is — try it: cocotricolore.fr
It’s free to start (10 questions/day) and €8 for unlimited access. I’m using it myself to prepare.
What’s Next
I don’t know when my application will be processed. These things take time. France is thorough — another thing I appreciate about the place.
But I’m studying. Learning things about French history and governance I probably should have learned years ago. Turns out living somewhere and understanding somewhere are different things.
Nearly 20 years in. Time to make it official.
Preparing for the French civic exam? I built Coco Tricolore to help — a free Telegram bot with 350+ official questions.