After the interview: timelines, décret, and appeals

After the entretien d'assimilation, your file continues to be examined. Service-public.gouv.fr explains that an enquiry looks at your civic behaviour (for example, payment of taxes), that consular and social bodies may be consulted, and that your criminal record in France and abroad is checked.

If you filed online, you follow each step and receive notifications in your ANEF personal space, where you also answer requests for documents. Report any change of situation (address, family, job) after your récépissé: online in your personal space, or with the declaration of change of situation if you filed on paper.

The administration has a maximum of 18 months from the récépissé to answer a naturalisation or réintégration application. This is reduced to 12 months if you had lived in France habitually for at least 10 years when the récépissé was issued. The time limit can be extended once by 3 months, with reasons given.

Actual times vary a lot between platforms. A delay is not in itself a bad sign; keep your contact details up to date so you do not miss a request.

If accepted, you are named in a naturalisation decree published in the Journal officiel. You are informed by email after publication (by post if you gave no email) and download your decree on Légifrance. You are French from the date the decree was signed. Your unmarried minor children who usually live with you also become French if they are named in the decree; their age is assessed on the signature date.

Check the decree carefully. A transcription error or a missing event (for example, a birth before the signature) can be corrected or modified through an online service for online applicants, or by writing to the Ministry of the Interior's naturalisation service (SDANF, Rezé). Errors in the French birth or marriage certificates drawn up for you go to the Service central d'état civil in Nantes, which handles these by post only.

• You can apply for a carte nationale d'identité and a passport, and for your children who became French with you
• Young people who become French between 16 and 25 must complete the recensement (census for the journée défense et citoyenneté) within a month
• The prefect normally invites you to a cérémonie d'accueil dans la citoyenneté française

The decree can still be withdrawn within 2 years of publication, after the Conseil d'État's opinion, if you did not meet the conditions, or within 2 years of the discovery of fraud.

You have 2 months from notification to file a recours administratif (recours hiérarchique) with the minister in charge of naturalisations. Online applicants must use the form in the "Mes notifications" section of their personal space, otherwise the appeal may be declared inadmissible. Paper applicants write to the Sous-direction de l'accès à la nationalité française.

This administrative appeal is compulsory before going to court. If it is rejected, or if there is no answer within 4 months, you have 2 months to bring the case before the Tribunal administratif de Nantes. A decision to close a new application without examination can be challenged directly in court. Consider advice from a lawyer or an accredited association; this guide is not legal advice.