Very interesting - a wide range of questions. No questions about lakes? (e.g. Lac du Bourget)
TDF features widely - only one thing - Eddy Merckx is Belgian? Maybe he’s been made an honorary francais!
He’s been in the news, this year his TDF stage win record matched by Mark Cavendish and 51 years after Merckx’s epic climb which required post event oxygen the first double ascent of the mountain won by another belgian! (in belgian colours)
As I said, some things are personal…you can get asked about well known sports people, or sports events. So for me that’s cycling! For you it could be tennis… (you’re right Merckx is a Fleming). You can populate many of the categories with your own choices, and that’s probably better.
For geography they only ever seem to ask about fleuves (estuarial rivers), mountains, seas and neighbouring countries. Maybe trying to keep it simple? It’s all seems quite straightforward with no massive in depth knowledge needed.
The tests are done with L’alliance francaise.
Offering different dates .
I’m happy to be corrected @toryroo but if you dh is applying on the basis of having a French parent, completely different rules apply from the ones governing us who (very unfortunately) have no direct French family. I have a friend whois applying for citizenship of the basis of his French mother and he hasn’t (so far) been made aware of any income stipulations at all. I still think your dh should have a go…
Exactly, the rules are different/simpler if you have French family. I could have waited until I was 65 with over 25 years in France and as the father of French kids I wouldn’t have had to prove any more than that, no income requirements etc. and no mega, mega dossier and 3+ year wait, but it’s in the bag now so no hard feelings and hope that’ll be the case for you, JJones, Dee and your otherhalf, Toryroo 
The problem is that at the moment of his birth she wasn’t officially French so he is in no better situation than anyone else. I still find it breathtakingly unfair, particularly when most EU countries allow you to go back to grandparents!
Oh, yes please… My father’s Mum was French… and I’d love to use her as my “open sesame” .
Are you sure that matters? She’s French now! I have a friend who has citizenship on the back of his son’s and at the time of the son’s birth, neither was French… 
Apparently! If she’d realised that she could have her passport back the bare 2 years later that the la changed, or at any point before J turned 18 it wouldn’t have been an issue. In those pre internet days she had no way of knowing, from Yorkshire, that things had changed.
Unfortunately these bizarre things do exist, if my kids had been born a few years earlier (before June 2006) they wouldn’t have automatically had British nationality as we’re pacs’d not married, they would have had to apply like anyone else on a “may be eligible” footing!
You may be eligible to apply for citizenship if your father was a British citizen when you were born
love the “may be eligible” 
However, I’d keep plugging away, Toryroo, as he seems to have a good case given the present situation (if I’ve understood correctly), go to appeal perhaps? 
I don’t think owning a home counts as income, Karen, it could be taken into account as there isn’t rent to pay but the financial requirements are pretty strick with several well known cases of people being refused for it, being refused because they’re a stagiare (German woman in Montpellier) or cdd rather than a cdi and the famous chap in the Dordogne who’s figures just didn’t add up, although a cdd isn’t meant to bar you from naturalisation (although that has been reported as being used) it’d just take a whole load more proof to get you through/that it’ll be renewed/is stable.
Yes, you’re exempt the language test if you’ve got a French qualification, done in French etc. the brevet is proof or level 3 course (uni), but that’s fairly specific : my BA hons degree in French and my PGCE modern languages (French) post grad teaching qualification wouldn’t have changed anything, I’d still have to have done the test. It was my maïtrise at a French uni that got me “off the hook”. And to be honnest, you need a far higher level of French to get through uni in France than you do to pass the language test so it’s a non starter/not at all “getting off the hook”!
The levels of the french diplomas have been inversed see here Quelle est la nomenclature des diplômes par niveau ? | service-public.fr
shows I’ve been out of education for a little while, pretty recent change though, all noted thanks
And having B1 officially just gets you through to the interview (along with all the other requirements). You then do need to be able to communicate and manage the interview. I think if I were only B1 level I could have struggled. My interviewer, charming tho’ she was, spoke normal fast French from behind a mask and a plastic screen, and made zero concessions re language. And the closer it got to to 12h the faster she spoke 
Did you ever ask her to slow down and/or repeat something she had said ??
No, I didn’t need to.
It just occurred to me afterwards that had I had that interview in 2003 (which is when I passed my B2 certificate) I would have struggled.
Fair enough…
I’ve been having difficulty recently, understanding some folk when they talk to me through their masks.
Whereas I have no problems when folk talk without masks (well distanced, of course).
It could well be the onset of a hearing problem… who knows…
However, I would hope that the Interviewer would be prepared to repeat themselves … provided the applicant is able to demonstrate an acceptable level of French when asking them to…
(I’m not saying it very well, but I’m sure you get my drift.)
I just hope that one needn’t be marked down for not hearing properly… as masks and/or screens can be a dratted nuisance.
The interview lasts 90 minutes during which time the interviewer gets a very good idea of who you are, what you know and what your french is like. The girl being interviewed next to me wasn’t up to it and got ripped to threads. It’s something you need to prepare for but if you are ready it’s not a bad hour and a half chatting. For people who don’t work/live in a francophone environnement understanding and replying, holding a conversation for 90 minutes is in itself a big hill to climb.
Can’t think why I’m fretting about masks/screens.
I can prattle in French till the cows come home…
If we do apply for nationality… by the time the Interview comes around… masks and screens will hopefully be a thing of the past…
Or we’ll have hearing aids…
On the other hand, it is a reasonable query for folk who are already in the system…
??? I was interviewed in a private office…I think it would be odd to be interviewed in “public”?
And not 90 minutes, much less than that. I was slightly surprised at how few of “the questions” I was asked. But then we started late as she said she had been held up, so I guess she wanted to get back on schedule. And hopefully I am not a particularly controversial case.