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CEFR B1

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French Past Participle Agreement: être, avoir and se

By Michael McGettrickUpdated 25 October 2026

A French past participle agrees with whatever it is attached to: . - They have left. The hard part is knowing what it is attached to. Three rules decide it, and a handful of cases never agree at all. Here is the whole system on one screen.

feminine agreementplural agreementthe word it agrees withWhat do the colours mean?
CaseExampleAgrees with
.the subject
, object after .nothing
, pronoun first .the pronoun
+ .the noun replaces
reflexive ., the direct object
reflexive + object .nothing
.nothing
+ infinitive .nothing

Quick check

Now use it: three quick questions on the chart above. The full practice is further down.

Spot the mistake

0/3

Tap the mistake.

This page goes deeper than the passé composé and avoir or être, which set out the basics. Agreement of the past participle is on the AQA A-level (AS) grammar list, and in written work each of these can cost a mark.

With être: agree with the subject

feminine agreementplural agreementWhat do the colours mean?

After , the participle behaves like an adjective: add e for a feminine subject, s for a plural one.

SubjectExampleEnglish
a woman .She has arrived.
men, or mixed .They have left.
only women .They came.
, one woman, ?Madam, did you stay?

Two subjects need a second look:

  • Paul Marie . - Paul and Marie have left. A mixed group takes the masculine plural.
  • . - We left early. When means we, the participle may agree with the people meant, and in modern French it usually does.

The same rule runs through the passive, where the participle agrees with the subject and itself never changes:

  • . - The letter was written.
  • vendues. - The houses were sold.

With avoir: the direct object placed before

feminine agreementplural agreementthe direct object, placed beforeWhat do the colours mean?

After , the subject never matters. The participle agrees only with a direct object, and only when that object comes before the verb. If it comes after, nothing agrees.

Marie moves in front as l', and vu picks up her e

A direct object gets in front of the verb in four main ways.

Way in frontExampleEnglish
a pronoun ? .I've seen them.
.The flowers I bought.
in a question ?Which towns did you visit?
?How many books did you read?

works like : ? - Which one did you choose?

me, te, nous, vous: direct or not?

These four pronouns can be direct or indirect, and only a direct one agrees. Ask whether the verb takes .

VerbExampleAgrees?
.yes, direct
?yes, if t' is a woman
à .no, indirect
à .no, indirect

and are always indirect, so they never cause agreement: . - I phoned them.

Reflexive verbs: the avoir rule in disguise

feminine agreementplural agreementthe direct object, placed beforeWhat do the colours mean?

Reflexive verbs take , but they agree as if they took : with a direct object placed before them. Usually that object is , which means the same person as the subject, so the agreement looks like ordinary subject agreement.

  • . - She got up. (she got herself up)
  • . - They had fun.

Verbs that only exist as reflexives ( , , ) have no real object in : they simply agree with the subject. . - She remembered him.

The one exception is 'arroger (to claim for oneself), which follows the rule: arrogé . - They claimed rights for themselves.

The rule shows itself when the verb has a second object after it. Then that noun is the direct object, is only "for herself", and nothing agrees.

Direct objectSentenceAgreement
, before .
, after .none
, before .
, after .none

Read the third row slowly: the hands are now in front, as , so the participle agrees with them. Same verb, same woman, three spellings.

The verbs that never agree: se is indirect

When the verb takes ( , ), is an indirect object, and the participle stays plain whoever the subject is.

VerbExampleEnglish
.They spoke to each other.
.They phoned each other.
souri.They smiled at each other.
.They lied to each other.
succéder succédé.The days followed one another.

belongs here too, for a different reason: is its direct object, and it comes after. So . - She realised her mistake.

Seen or heard doing something

With , or + an infinitive, ask who does the action. If the object in front does it, agree; if something is done to it, do not.

Object in frontExampleAgreement
does the singing .yes
is sung .no

The girls were singing; the songs were not singing anything. This is a fine point that even careful writers argue over, so treat it as a mark. + infinitive used to follow it too, but the 1990 spelling reform lets stay unchanged there, like : . - She let herself fall. (Traditionally , and both are accepted.)

Cases that never agree

the participle stays unchangedWhat do the colours mean?

Four constructions put something in front of the participle that looks as if it should make the participle agree, and does not. Leave the participle alone.

ConstructionExampleEnglish
? .Apples? I ate some.
+ infinitive .I showed them in.
impersonal verb .The storms there have been.
amount, not object .The ten it cost.

What each one is really doing:

  • . - I ate three of them. is an amount, "of them", not a direct object.
  • ! - The heat we had this summer! With an impersonal verb, is a dummy and nothing is the object.
  • . - The two hours the film lasted. When , or state a price, a time or a weight, that is a measure, not an object.

A real object still agrees: - the parcels I weighed.

before an infinitive has its own page: faire + infinitive.

Can you hear it?

feminine agreement, heardwritten, not heardWhat do the colours mean?

Most of the time, no. Most participles end in a vowel (, , vendu), so the extra e and s change only the spelling.

  • . - I saw her. (sounds the same as )

A participle ending in a consonant is different. When it takes e, the consonant is sounded, and the agreement is audible.

MasculineFeminineExample
.
.
.
.
.

Others that work the same way:

MasculineFeminineExample
.
.
.

In relaxed speech many French speakers drop even these ( ), but in an exam, write and say the agreement.

The same rules in every compound tense

feminine agreementplural agreementthe word it agrees withWhat do the colours mean?

Nothing on this page belongs to the alone. Every compound tense is an auxiliary plus a participle, so the same three rules apply in all of them.

TenseExampleEnglish
plus-- .The letters I had written.
antérieur .She will have left before noon.
conditional past .They would have come.
past subjunctive .I'm glad she came.
past infinitive , .After getting up, she went out.

The last row is the one people forget: a past infinitive still agrees, with the person it belongs to.

A test to run every time

Run through these questions in order and stop at the first yes.

  1. Is the auxiliary and the verb not reflexive? Agree with the subject: .
  2. Is the verb reflexive, with as its direct object, or does it only exist as a reflexive? Agree: , .
  3. Is it reflexive with a direct object after it, or is indirect? No agreement, unless comes first: , , but .
  4. Is the auxiliary ? Look left of the verb for a direct object. Found one that is not a never-agree case? Agree: . Otherwise leave it: .

One evening, every rule

feminine agreementplural agreementthe participle, unchangedWhat do the colours mean?

Five sentences from one evening, each with its reason. Read the reason column before the French.

ReasonFrenchEnglish
: the subject .My sister came to dinner.
pronoun before .I invited her on Saturday.
object after .She brought flowers.
before .The flowers she brought are lovely.
is indirect .We talked for a long time.

The flowers are the same flowers in rows three and four. Only their position changes, and with it the spelling.

Mistakes English speakers make

WrongRightWhy
.: not the subject
. comes first
.object after the verb
. is indirect
.no agreement with
. + infinitive
. takes

What to do next

  1. For every participle you write with , look left: is there a direct object in front?
  2. For a reflexive verb, ask whether the verb takes ; if it does, no agreement.
  3. Learn the five audible pairs in the table: , , , , .

Practise: test yourself

Sort into groups

0/7

What does the participle agree with in each sentence?

Tap a word, then the group it belongs in.

Build the word

0/4

Build the participle so that it agrees, or does not.

  1. la lettre que j'ai ___ (écrire)

    Accents optional

    Your word is empty.

  2. les clés que tu as ___ (prendre)

    Accents optional

    Your word is empty.

  3. ma sœur ? je l'ai ___ hier (voir)

    Accents optional

    Your word is empty.

  4. Elle s'est ___ . (laver)

    Accents optional

    Your word is empty.

Spot the mistake

0/6

Tap the mistake.

Complete the story

0/5

Choose the right participle for each gap.

My sister's visit

Ma sœur est hier soir. Je l'ai à la gare. Les cadeaux qu'elle a étaient superbes. Puis nous nous sommes jusqu'à minuit. Les photos qu'elle a sont sur mon téléphone.

Gap 1 of 5

Pick the right one

0/4

Choose the right form of the participle.

  1. Quelles villes as-tu ?

  2. Combien de livres as-tu cet été ?

  3. Elle s'est compte de son erreur.

  4. Ils se sont hier soir. (téléphoner)

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Frequently asked questions

When does the past participle agree with in French?
Only when the direct object comes before the verb. That happens with a direct object pronoun ( , I saw her), with ( ) and with questions that put the object first ( ?). When the object follows the verb, nothing agrees: . The subject of never causes agreement.
Why is it and not ?
Because a reflexive verb agrees with its direct object, not with its subject, when that object comes first. In , is the direct object (she washed herself), so the participle agrees. In , the direct object is , which comes after the verb; only means 'for herself'. So there is no agreement.
Why is it without an s?
Because takes à: you speak to someone. So in is an indirect object, and an indirect object never makes a participle agree. The same goes for , , , , succéder and : , souri.
Does the past participle agree with ?
No. is not a direct object in its own right; it stands for 'of them', an amount. So ? (apples? I ate some), with no agreement, even though the apples are feminine plural. Some writers do make it agree, but the standard rule taught in France is no agreement, and that is the safe choice in an exam.
Can you hear past participle agreement in French?
Usually not. Most participles end in a vowel (, , vendu), so the extra e and s are silent. But a participle that ends in a consonant sounds that consonant when it takes e: becomes , becomes , becomes , becomes . Those are the agreements an can hear.