La Francophonie: The French-Speaking World
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50 free La Francophonie: the French-Speaking World trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
French is spoken on every inhabited continent, and most of the people who use it every day do not live in France. La Francophonie is the name for that whole world, and also for the organisation of governments that grew up to connect it. This quiz covers both. Some questions deal with the organisation itself: where it was born, who has led it, where its leaders meet and which unlikely places have signed up. Others travel through the countries, from West and Central Africa to the Indian Ocean, North America, the Caribbean, Europe and the South Pacific, with history, food, music and sport along the way. It suits French students and teachers looking for a class activity around International Francophonie Day, as well as geography fans and quiz players who want to know the French-speaking world beyond Paris. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which North African country, home to millions of French speakers, has stayed out of La Francophonie?
Algeria
Algeria is not a member, although French is widely used in its government, media and schools. France ruled the country for 132 years, until independence in 1962.
Q 02Which country, Africa's second-largest by area, is the most populous officially French-speaking nation on Earth?
DR Congo
DR Congo has well over 100 million people, far more than France itself. French is its only official language, a legacy of Belgian rule, alongside four national languages.
Q 03Which European microstate counts the president of France as one of its two princes, alongside a Spanish bishop?
Andorra
Andorra is headed by two co-princes, the president of France and the Bishop of Urgell. Its only official language is Catalan, yet it is a member of La Francophonie.
Q 04Which comic characters did the Belgian cartoonist Peyo first draw in 1958 for the French-language magazine Spirou?
The Smurfs
The Smurfs began as Les Schtroumpfs, a word Peyo made up at a meal when he could not remember the word for salt. Smurf is the Dutch translation.
Q 05Which dish of French fries, cheese curds and gravy emerged in rural Quebec in the late 1950s?
Poutine
Poutine was long mocked and used to belittle Quebec society, until younger Quebecers reclaimed the dish as their own. Several restaurants still claim to have invented it.
Q 06Which singer from Charlemagne, Quebec, released D'eux in 1995, the best-selling French-language album ever?
Céline Dion
Céline Dion made D'eux with the French songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman, who wrote 11 of its 12 tracks. In the United States it was sold as The French Album.
Q 07Which French-speaking island nation in the Indian Ocean supplies most of the world's natural vanilla?
Madagascar
Madagascar supplies about 80% of the world's natural vanilla. French shares official status there with Malagasy.
Q 08Which French baron revived the Olympic Games, where every announcement is still made in French before English?
Pierre de Coubertin
Pierre de Coubertin co-founded the International Olympic Committee and served as its second president. At each Games, French is spoken first, then English, then the host nation's language.
Q 09Which Caribbean country broke from France in 1804, the only nation in history founded by a slave revolt?
Haiti
Haiti declared independence on 1 January 1804 after defeating French troops at the Battle of Vertières. It became the second republic in the Americas, after the United States.
Q 10Which US state, whose largest city French colonists founded in 1718, joined La Francophonie as an observer in 2018?
Louisiana
Louisiana became the first US state in the organisation, three centuries after New Orleans was founded. A state agency, CODOFIL, has promoted French there since 1968.
Q 11Which town outside Paris, famous for its royal palace, hosted the first Francophonie summit in 1986?
Versailles
Versailles welcomed 41 countries and governments in February 1986, with President François Mitterrand as host. The leaders have gathered about every two years since.
Q 12Which former United Nations chief became the first Secretary-General of La Francophonie in 1997?
Boutros Boutros-Ghali
Boutros Boutros-Ghali took the post a year after a United States veto denied him a second term at the UN. The Egyptian diplomat led La Francophonie until 2002.
Q 13Which Swiss city, the largest in French-speaking Romandy, hosts the European headquarters of the United Nations?
Geneva
Q 21International Francophonie Day, 20 March, marks a 1970 convention signed in which capital on the Niger River?
Niamey
Niamey hosted the 21 states and governments that founded the Agency for Cultural and Technical Co-operation, the forerunner of La Francophonie. The day itself was created in 1988.
Q 22Which country swapped French for English in its schools in 2008, yet later supplied La Francophonie's leader?
Rwanda
Rwanda's long-serving foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo was chosen as Secretary-General in 2018 with the backing of France's president. Her own university degree was in English.
Q 23Which country staged the first Jeux de la Francophonie in 1989, a games with medals for arts as well as sport?
Morocco
Geneva hosts more international organisations than any other city, earning it the nickname Peace Capital. It stands where the Rhône flows out of the lake that shares its name.
Q 14Which historically Dutch-speaking Belgian city is now a mostly French-speaking enclave inside Flanders?
Brussels
Brussels began shifting from Dutch to French in the late 19th century, as locals assimilated and newcomers arrived from France and Wallonia. The capital region is officially bilingual.
Q 15Which country, under French mandate after the First World War, prints French beside Arabic on its banknotes?
Lebanon
Lebanon declared independence in 1943, yet all its coins and banknotes remain bilingual in Arabic and French. Beirut hosted the Francophonie summit in 2002.
Q 16Which West African country, home to Timbuktu, dropped French as its official language under a 2023 constitution?
Mali
Mali kept French only as a working language after 97% of voters approved the new constitution in a referendum run by its military rulers. Thirteen national languages are official instead.
Q 17Which country, whose footballers are the Indomitable Lions, has both French and English as official languages?
Cameroon
Cameroon was divided between France and the United Kingdom after the First World War, and the two parts reunited in 1961. Tourist brochures call the country Africa in miniature.
Q 18Which island in French Polynesia staged the Paris 2024 Olympic surfing, a record 15,000 km from the host city?
Tahiti
Tahiti was chosen for the famously massive waves at Teahupo'o. No Olympic medal event had ever been held so far from its host city.
Q 19The CFA franc, created by France in 1945 for its African colonies, has been pegged since 1999 to which currency?
The euro
The euro took over from the French franc as the anchor, at a fixed rate of 655.957 CFA francs. The initials first stood for French colonies of Africa.
Q 20Which French explorer founded Quebec City in 1608 and is remembered as the Father of New France?
Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain crossed the Atlantic more than twenty times and governed the colony until his death in 1635. Lake Champlain is named after him.
Morocco held the first edition in Casablanca and Rabat, opened by King Hassan II. Singers, storytellers, poets and painters compete for gold, silver and bronze alongside the athletes.
Q 24Which country, ancestral home of singer Charles Aznavour, hosted the 2018 Francophonie summit days after he died?
Armenia
Armenia welcomed the leaders to Yerevan ten days after Aznavour died, aged 94. The Paris-born son of Armenian immigrants had served as the country's ambassador to Switzerland.
Q 25Which French-language TV network was founded in 1984 by public broadcasters from France, Belgium and Switzerland?
TV5Monde
TV5Monde takes its number from the five public channels that founded it: three French, one Swiss and one Belgian. It began broadcasting on 2 January 1984 as plain TV5.
Q 26Which company, founded by two Quebec street performers in 1984, is the world's largest contemporary circus producer?
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil grew out of a troupe of stilt walkers, and one founder walked 56 miles on stilts to win funding from the Quebec government. Its name is French for Circus of the Sun.
Q 27Which Asian capital hosted the 1997 summit that appointed La Francophonie's first Secretary-General?
Hanoi
Hanoi staged the seventh summit, which adopted a revised charter and named the first holder of the new post. The city had been the capital of French Indochina from 1902 to 1945.
Q 28Which Canadian city, on an island in the St Lawrence, houses the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie?
Montreal
Montreal was founded in 1642 as Ville-Marie and takes its name from Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill at its heart. The university network born there in 1961 has over a thousand members.
Q 29Which officially bilingual Canadian province joined Quebec as a participating government of La Francophonie in 1977?
New Brunswick
New Brunswick takes part in its own right, as Quebec has since 1971, and hosted the 1999 summit in Moncton. About a third of New Brunswickers are French-speaking.
Q 30Which former Governor General of Canada led La Francophonie from 2015 to 2019, the first woman in the post?
Michaëlle Jean
Michaëlle Jean had been a journalist and broadcaster before becoming Governor General. She sought a second term at La Francophonie but lost to a candidate backed by France and, in the end, Canada.