Sitting the EU knowledge test in French, or as a French speaker

The language 2 rule

Two tests share the name, and their language rules differ.

The internal notices are published only on the Commission's intranet. EPSOHQ, quoting the AD5 notice (COM/AD/108/2026), reports that the language of the competition (English, French or German) is used for the cognitive assessment and for every test, and that language 2 must differ from the main language recorded in Sysper. The same rule is reported for AD7, AD6 (COM/AD/111/2026) and AST2 (COM/AST/112/2026). We could not read those notices ourselves, so always check your own notice and invitation.

For EPSO's open competition, the notice in the Official Journal is explicit:

Table 1 of the same notice puts the reasoning tests in language 1 and the EU knowledge test in language 2. In that competition, French can be your language 2 provided your language 1 is another language, at C1 level at least. See EPSO's knowledge test for AD5.

If you are a French speaker, you will sit the internal test in English or German

If French is the main language recorded for you in Sysper, the reported rule means you choose English or German as language 2 in an internal competition. Three practical consequences:

• Practise in the language you will sit in. Revising in French and answering in English forces you to translate in your head against the clock.
• Revise from the official texts in that language. According to the Commission's guidance to candidates, every question rests on publicly available official EU sources. Those texts exist in English and German, and their wording is not always a word-for-word match for the French (see the differences below).
• Keep a trilingual word list to hand. Our glossary gives each term's official name in English, French and German.

The format does not change with the language: 30 four-option questions, 30 minutes at AD grades and 40 at AST grades, with no going back (reported). The detail is in how the test works.

If French is your language 2: 30 official terms to know

These terms come from the French versions of the Treaties and the acts cited, checked against IATE, the EU's terminology database. The third column says where to find each one.

The rules behind these terms are explained in our topic pages, for example the budget cycle and discharge and how the Commission takes decisions.

Five places where English and French differ

Some terms are not word-for-word translations, and a French phrasing can throw a candidate who revised in English.

• "As a body" becomes "en tant que collège". Article 17 TEU says in English that the Commission is responsible "as a body"; the French text speaks of the College (quotation below).
• "Selection board" becomes "jury". The Staff Regulations give the jury, appointed by the appointing authority (AIPN in French), the task of drawing up the "liste d'aptitude" ("list of suitable candidates"). EPSO's notices speak of a "liste de réserve".
• "Open competition" becomes "concours général". Annex III to the Staff Regulations distinguishes a competition internal to the institution ("concours interne à l'institution"), one internal to the institutions, and an open competition ("concours général").
• "Financial Regulation" is not the official title. Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2024/2509 is "relatif aux règles financières applicables au budget général de l'Union"; its text also calls it the "règlement financier".
• The test itself has two French names. The language table of the EPSO/AD/427/26 notice says "test de connaissance de l'UE"; the amending notice of 30 June 2026 also writes "test de connaissances de l'UE". Both mean the same test.

False friends: the three Councils

The best-known trap is one word. Three bodies are called "Council" ("Conseil"), and one of them is not part of the EU.

The Treaties simply say "the Council" ("le Conseil"). The full name appears, for example, in the preamble of acts adopted with Parliament, such as Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2024/2509. For more, see the European Council, the Council of the EU and the Council of Europe compared.

The official French titles of the main 2025 texts

The priorities area is tested through named communications (see the 2025 packages). Their official French title is not always the one the press uses. Titles taken from the French versions on EUR-Lex:

All of these texts predate the content cut-offs of the 2026 internal competitions. On the rule itself, see the content cut-off explained.

Reading against the clock

At AD grades, 30 questions in 30 minutes leaves one minute a question; at AST grades, 40 minutes leaves 80 seconds (reported). With no going back in the internal test, a question read three times costs time you cannot recover. Learn the terms in the table until you recognise them without translating, find the word that decides the answer first (the institution, the majority, the figure, the negation), and practise on the real clock. See AD vs AST: 30 or 40 minutes for the same 30 questions.

A worked example in French terms

Our own question, written from the official text. It is not a question from the real test.

Under Article 30 of the Staff Regulations, who draws up the list of suitable candidates in a competition?

• A. The appointing authority
• B. The selection board
• C. The Joint Committee
• D. The European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO)

Answer: B. The appointing authority appoints the board and then chooses from the list it draws up; the Joint Committee is consulted on the notice of competition (Staff Regulations, Annex III, Article 1). In the French version of the same article, the board is the "jury" and the list is the "liste d'aptitude".

Practising in French

Our free 30-question test and our full mocks can be taken in English, French or German, under Commission or open-competition rules, with AD or AST timing. In French, each answer points to the official French sentence of the source text; where a document exists only in English, the quotation stays in English and says so. Our method explains how each translation is checked. For the German side of the same question, see sitting the test in German.