What are the French possessive pronouns?

Le mien (mine), le tien (yours, tu), le sien (his / hers / its), le notre (ours), le votre (yours, vous), le leur (theirs). Each has four forms agreeing with the thing possessed: le mien / la mienne / les miens / les miennes, and so on. They replace a possessive adjective plus its noun: 'c'est ma voiture' becomes 'c'est la mienne' (it's mine). They differ from the possessive adjectives mon / ma / mes, which sit in front of a noun rather than standing in for the whole phrase.

Does the French possessive pronoun agree with the owner or the thing owned?

With the thing owned, never the owner. 'La voiture' is feminine, so 'mine' is 'la mienne' regardless of whether the owner is male or female. This is the opposite of English 'his / hers', which marks the owner's gender. So a man saying 'the car is mine' says 'la voiture est la mienne' (feminine, matching voiture), and 'le sien' can mean either 'his' or 'hers' - the form tells you the gender of the object, not the person.

What is the difference between le notre and notre in French?

The circumflex. The possessive pronoun le notre / le votre carries a circumflex accent and a closed 'o' sound, while the possessive adjective notre / votre has no accent and an open 'o'. So 'notre maison' (our house, adjective) but 'la notre' (ours, pronoun): 'Votre jardin est plus grand que le notre.' (Your garden is bigger than ours.) The accent is not decorative - it marks a real difference in both spelling and pronunciation, and dropping it is a genuine error.

French Possessive Pronouns

Possessive pronouns are how French says mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs in one word. Where the possessive adjective sits in front of a noun (ma voiture, my car), the pronoun swallows the whole phrase: c'est la mienne (it's mine). They carry a definite article, they come in four forms each, and the rule that catches every English speaker is that they agree with the thing possessed, not with the owner.

The full table

Every form is definite article + possessive word, and both pieces agree with the noun being replaced. The article is what makes the difference between, say, le mien and la mienne.

Owner	masc sg	fem sg	masc pl	fem pl	English
je (mine)	le mien	la mienne	les miens	les miennes	mine
tu (yours)	le tien	la tienne	les tiens	les tiennes	yours (sg)
il / elle (his)	le sien	la sienne	les siens	les siennes	his / hers
nous (ours)	le notre	la notre	les notres	les notres	ours
vous (yours)	le votre	la votre	les votres	les votres	yours (pl)
ils / elles	le leur	la leur	les leurs	les leurs	theirs

A few things to read off the table:

le notre / le votre carry a circumflex and have only one plural form (les notres / les votres), with no separate masculine and feminine plural.
le leur / la leur has no separate masculine and feminine singular - just le leur / la leur - and the plural is les leurs for both genders.
le sien does double duty for his, hers and its; the form tells you the gender of the object, not the owner.

The agreement rule: the thing owned, not the owner

This is the headline. English marks the owner: "his" versus "hers" tells you the owner is male or female. French marks the thing possessed and tells you nothing about the owner.

Take la voiture (the car, feminine). "Mine" is la mienne whether the speaker is a man or a woman, because voiture is feminine:

C'est ta voiture? - Oui, c'est la mienne. (Is it your car? Yes, it's mine.)
Mon vélo est cassé, je prends le tien. (My bike is broken, I'll take yours.)
Ses parents sont gentils, les miens aussi. (His parents are nice, mine too - les miens because parents is masculine plural.)

The trap with le sien: it means his, hers, or its, and the form follows the object. So a man's car is la sienne (feminine, matching voiture) and a woman's book is le sien (masculine, matching livre). If you want to disambiguate the owner, French falls back on à lui / à elle (see below).

Paul a perdu sa clé, alors il a pris la sienne. (Paul lost his key, so he took hers / his - context decides; la sienne just agrees with clé.)

The circumflex: le notre / le votre vs notre / votre

The pronoun le notre / le votre carries a circumflex (ô) and is pronounced with a closed "o"; the adjective notre / votre has no accent and an open "o". This is a real spelling and pronunciation difference, not an optional flourish.

notre maison (our house - adjective, no accent) vs la notre (ours - pronoun, circumflex).
votre jardin (your garden - adjective) vs le votre (yours - pronoun).

Example:

Votre jardin est plus grand que le notre. (Your garden is bigger than ours.)
Nos enfants jouent avec les votres. (Our children play with yours.)

Dropping the circumflex on the pronoun is a genuine error that exam markers catch, so write le notre and le votre with the accent every time. The possessive adjectives are covered on the French possessives page; the pronoun is the accented sibling of those words.

Contraction with a and de

Because the pronoun carries a definite article, it contracts with à and de exactly as any le / les would: à + le -> au, à + les -> aux, de + le -> du, de + les -> des.

à + le mien -> au mien: Je préfère mon plan au tien. (I prefer my plan to yours.)
de + le mien -> du mien: Le résultat dépend du tien. (The result depends on yours.)
à + les miens -> aux miens: J'ai écrit à mes parents et aux tiens. (I wrote to my parents and to yours.)
de + les leurs -> des leurs: Nos problèmes sont différents des leurs. (Our problems are different from theirs.)

The feminine forms don't contract (there's no à la contraction): à la mienne, de la mienne stay as they are. Only the masculine singular and the plurals contract, which is the standard article behaviour from the articles page.

The "a moi" alternative after etre

After the verb être, French often prefers a different construction for possession: être à + a stressed pronoun. C'est à moi means "it's mine" just as c'est le mien does, but the two are not quite interchangeable.

C'est à moi. (It's mine - emphasises ownership, "it belongs to me".)
C'est le mien. (It's mine - identifies which one, "it's the one that's mine".)

Use à moi / à toi / à lui / à elle / à nous / à vous / à eux / à elles (the stressed pronouns from the stressed pronouns page) when the point is simply who owns it:

Ce livre est à toi? (Is this book yours?)
Ces clés sont à eux. (These keys are theirs.)
À qui est ce sac? - Il est à moi. (Whose bag is this? It's mine.)

Reach for le mien / la mienne when you're picking one out of several - distinguishing your thing from someone else's:

Il y a deux manteaux; celui-ci est le mien. (There are two coats; this one is mine.)

A quick test: if you could answer "À qui...?" (Whose...?), à moi fits. If you're contrasting your item with another (mine versus yours), le mien fits.

Worked examples

Ta chambre est plus grande que la mienne. (Your room is bigger than mine.)
J'ai oublié mon stylo, tu peux me prêter le tien? (I forgot my pen, can you lend me yours?)
Nos voisins sont bruyants; les votres sont calmes. (Our neighbours are noisy; yours are quiet.)
Ce n'est pas mon idée, c'est la sienne. (It's not my idea, it's his / hers.)
Je préfère ma méthode à la tienne. (I prefer my method to yours.)
À qui sont ces gants? - Ils sont à moi. (Whose gloves are these? They're mine.)
Leur maison est belle, mais je préfère la notre. (Their house is lovely, but I prefer ours.)

Common mistakes English speakers make

Agreeing with the owner instead of the object: a man's car is still la mienne, not le mien, because voiture is feminine. Dropping the circumflex on le notre / le votre - the accented pronoun is a different word from the unaccented adjective notre / votre. Forgetting to contract: it's au mien and du tien, not à le mien or de le tien. Translating "his / hers" by the owner's gender - le sien can be either, so don't switch to la sienne just because the owner is a woman; let the object decide. And muddling the two ownership patterns after être: c'est à moi answers "whose?", while c'est le mien picks one out of several - both are correct, but they answer different questions.