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99 free France trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
44 free France trivia questions with answers. How well do you really know France? This French trivia quiz runs to 99 questions and covers the whole country: the Revolution and the Sun King, Joan of Arc and D-Day, the baguette and Champagne, the Louvre and Mont-Saint-Michel, the TGV, the Tour de France and the 1998 World Cup, plus the language itself and the Académie that guards it. It starts gently with questions anyone who has visited Paris can manage, then climbs to deep cuts about de Gaulle's cheese count and the original definition of the metre. It works for a pub quiz round, a French class, or a rainy Sunday. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question shows its citation, so when a question surprises you, you can see exactly where the fact comes from.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital city of France?
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city of France, situated on the Seine River.
Q 02Which river is the longest entirely within France?
Loire
The Loire, about 1,006 km long, is the longest river flowing entirely within France; the Rhône rises in Switzerland and the Seine is shorter at roughly 777 km.
Q 03On what date does France celebrate its National Day, often referred to as Bastille Day?
July 14th
France's National Day, known as Bastille Day in English-speaking countries, commemorates the Storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and the Fête de la Fédération on July 14, 1790.
Q 04Which mountain range forms France's border with Spain?
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees run about 430 km from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean along the Franco-Spanish border, with Andorra tucked between; their highest peak, Aneto, stands at 3,404 m on the Spanish side.
Q 05Approximately how tall is the Eiffel Tower, including its antenna?
330 meters
The Eiffel Tower stands about 330 meters tall after a new antenna was added in 2022; at its 1889 completion it was roughly 300 meters, then the world's tallest structure.
Q 06The French flag's blue, white and red are often said to represent which Revolutionary values?
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity is the Republic's motto, and the tricolour is popularly read as standing for it; Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours trilogy (Blue, White, Red) is built on that reading.
Q 07Who wrote 'La Marseillaise', France's anthem, in Strasbourg in 1792?
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, an army engineer officer, composed it in Strasbourg on 25 April 1792 as the 'Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin'; volunteers from Marseille made it famous.
Q 08Which wine region of France lends its name to the sparkling wine it makes?
Champagne
Champagne, the region around Reims and Épernay in northeastern France, gives the sparkling wine its name; only wine made there under AOC rules, with a second fermentation in the bottle, may use it.
Q 09Which of these designers, credited with the 1920s 'little black dress', was French?
Coco Chanel
Coco Chanel, born Gabrielle Chanel, was a highly influential French fashion designer and founder of the Chanel brand, known for her timeless designs.
Q 10Which 4,807-metre mountain on the Franco-Italian border is Europe's highest outside the Caucasus?
Mont Blanc
Mont Blanc is also the second-most prominent peak in Europe, behind only Mount Elbrus in Russia.
Q 11On which island was Napoleon Bonaparte born in 1769, to a family of Italian origin?
Corsica
Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on 15 August 1769, a year after France acquired the island from Genoa; he left for military school at Brienne on the mainland in 1779.
Q 12In what year did Napoleon crown himself Emperor of the French?
1804
Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French at Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 December 1804, taking the crown from Pope Pius VII's hands; he held the title until his first abdication in 1814.
Q 13Which 1958 upheaval brought down France's Fourth Republic, months before de Gaulle founded the Fifth?
The Algiers crisis
Q 21Notre-Dame de Paris reopened in December 2024, how many years after the fire that destroyed its spire?
Five
Five years: the blaze of 15 April 2019 brought down the flèche and the oak roof 'forest', and the restored cathedral reopened on 7 December 2024; construction had begun in 1163 under Bishop Maurice de Sully.
Q 22Which French scientist gave his name to the process of heating milk and wine to kill bacteria?
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur developed pasteurisation in the 1860s, first to stop wine spoiling; in 1885 he also gave the first rabies vaccine to nine-year-old Joseph Meister, who survived a rabid dog's bites.
Q 23Marie Curie named the first element she and Pierre discovered after which country?
Poland
The Algiers crisis of May 1958, when army officers in Algeria seized power and demanded de Gaulle's return, toppled the Fourth Republic; the Fifth Republic's constitution was approved by referendum that September.
Q 14The Tour de France was first organised in 1903 for what commercial purpose?
To sell more newspapers
The paper in question was L'Auto, an ancestor of today's L'Equipe. The race has run every year since, apart from the two world wars.
Q 15Because of the shape of its mainland, France is commonly nicknamed what?
The Hexagon
The Hexagon has six roughly equal sides; counting overseas regions the country has 18 regions in all, five of them outside Europe.
Q 16Which Norman port city was rebuilt in concrete by Auguste Perret after 1944 bombing?
Le Havre
Le Havre was flattened in September 1944 and rebuilt in reinforced concrete to Auguste Perret's plan; his city centre was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list in 2005.
Q 17In 2022 UNESCO added the know-how of which French food to its Intangible Heritage list?
The baguette
The baguette's artisanal know-how joined UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in November 2022; under a 1993 decree a 'baguette de tradition' may contain only wheat flour, water, yeast and salt.
Q 18The croissant was inspired by the kipferl, a crescent pastry from which country?
Austria
An Austrian artillery officer, August Zang, opened a Viennese bakery on the rue de Richelieu in Paris around 1838, and French bakers copied the idea using their own laminated dough.
Q 19How many members sit in the Académie française, the body that polices the French language?
Forty
The Académie française has forty seats, whose holders are called 'les immortels' after the motto 'À l'immortalité' on its seal; Cardinal Richelieu founded it in 1635.
Q 20Which tidal island in Normandy is topped by a medieval Benedictine abbey?
Mont-Saint-Michel
Mont-Saint-Michel's abbey was refounded for the Benedictines in 966 by Duke Richard I of Normandy; the island was among France's first UNESCO World Heritage sites, inscribed in 1979.
Polonium, discovered in 1898, was named for Poland, her homeland, which was then partitioned and had no independent state; in 1906 she became the first woman professor at the University of Paris.
Q 24The Palace of Versailles began life in 1623 as what kind of building for Louis XIII?
A hunting lodge
Louis XIII built Versailles in 1623 as a hunting lodge; Louis XIV expanded it and moved the court there permanently in 1682, where it stayed until October 1789.
Q 25Which player scored two headed goals in France's 3–0 win over Brazil in the 1998 World Cup final?
Zinedine Zidane
Zinedine Zidane headed in two first-half corners at the Stade de France on 12 July 1998, and Emmanuel Petit added a third in injury time for France's first world title.
Q 26Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in 1431 in which French city?
Rouen
Joan of Arc was burned in Rouen's Old Market Square on 30 May 1431, aged about nineteen; captured by Burgundian troops at Compiègne in May 1430, she was canonised in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.
Q 27The Bayeux Tapestry, nearly 70 metres long, tells the story of which event?
The Norman Conquest of England
The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the Norman Conquest of England, from Harold's oath to William through the Battle of Hastings in 1066; despite its name it is wool embroidery on linen, not a woven tapestry.
Q 28What top prize does the Cannes Film Festival hand out?
The Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or, introduced in 1955, is the top award at Cannes, held each May at the Palais des Festivals; the Golden Lion belongs to Venice and the Golden Bear to Berlin.
Q 29The French Revolution is generally said to have ended in 1799 with which event?
The coup of 18 Brumaire
The coup made Napoleon Bonaparte First Consul. About 16,000 people had been executed during the Reign of Terror, which ended in July 1794.
Q 30Which language of southern France was the tongue of the medieval troubadours?
Occitan
Occitan, the langue d'oc of southern France, was the language of the medieval troubadours; Frédéric Mistral won the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature for poetry in its Provençal dialect.