21-02-2025
What is France Identité and can foreigners use it?
As a one-step process for proving your ID or getting access to digital versions of vital documents for French life, France Identité sounds great.
However as a foreigner in France, you may not be able to use it.
What is France Identité?
France Identité is an app created by the French government and providing a secure short-cut to access official websites.
It also allows you to provide a digital proof of your ID and/or address when required, and offers an online ID-proof service that allows you to provide proof of your identity without having to divulge personal details to an external website.
It's also used to access digital versions of key French documents - at present you can get a digital driving licence, next to be rolled out is the digital carte vitale and it seems likely that other documents will follow.
The app is available now as either iOs or Android versions.
Who can use it?
Here's the bad news - in order to set up an account with France Identité you will need a French ID card, the carte nationale d'identité (CNI). Other forms of ID like a driver's licence, residency permit or passport cannot be used.
The carte nationale d'identité is only issued to people who are French citizens - so foreigners cannot use the app unless they have French citizenship. French citizens can use it provided they have the new-style ID card - the ones that are the same size and shape as a credit card.
This means that non French nationals cannot use the new digital version of the French driving licence, and will not be able to use the digital version of the carte vitale when that is rolled out, since these are provided via France Identité.
In fact anything that offers you a shortcut via France Identité will not be available.
Alternatives to using it
In good news, the digital versions of the driving licence and carte vitale remain optional, so foreigners will just have to continue using the physical card.
Likewise the shortcut to access on French official websites is not available, but you can still get in via entering your email address and password, or by using France Connect.
French rail operators SNCF have also announced that France Identité can be used to prove your ID while on a train - but inspectors will still accept proof of ID via other means such as a residency permit or passport.
Not to be confused with
France Identité is not the same as Identité Numérique - this is another online ID verification tool that allows a shortcut to secure access to French government sites, but instead of being run by the government it is run by La Poste.
Identité numérique can be used by some foreigners but not all - if you are not a French or EU citizen you will need to use your residency permit to confirm your identity, and only multi-year cartes de séjour are accepted.
Full details on how Identité numérique works HERE.
The one useful admin shortcut that everyone can use is France Connect - this is more basic than the two ID apps, but does allow you easier access to French government websites.
