The French language test website which foreigners in France use to obtain the certificates now required for many immigration processes has been down for at least a week, leaving students unable to register for exams or access their results.
French language learners have been unable to access the official online portal for the Diplôme de compétence en langue (DCL), a government-recognised language diploma that is now required for foreigners in France applying for French citizenship or certain types of residency card.
Visitors to the site trying to register are met with a predominantly white screen and a short message saying: “The DCL website is currently closed for maintenance. It is due to reopen shortly”.
The DCL website outage has been confirmed by French Breaches, an organisation dedicated to monitoring data breaches – although it is not clear whether the problem has been caused by a cyber-attack or technical problems.
The site has been unavailable for registrations for at least a week, although the homepage is still active.
The incident comes just days after the government’s ANTS website was reinstated following a cyber attack in which hackers accessed personal details of thousands of people who had previously used the platform for admin tasks such as swapping a driving licence or requesting a French passport.
In January, it was also confirmed that there had been a breach of confidentiality on the Ministry of Education’s GAEL platform, which processes DELF-DALF diplomas.
According to an official statement, that incident affected approximately 5 million exam candidates. Leaked data included personal information including: title, surname, first name, last name, city of birth, country of birth, date of birth, nationality, and mother tongue.
What is the DCL website and who is affected?
The website is used by both students and teachers to register to take a French language exam, and to receive their results.
Since January 1st 2026, France has toughened up its language requirements for foreigners in France, requiring a higher level of French (B2) for those applying for citizenship, as well as language tests for the first time for people applying for certain types of carte de séjour pluriannuelle residency card.
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Applicants must present either a degree certificate from a French university, or an officially recognised language exam – although it is not compulsory to use the DCL website (for example some people are registered for exams by language schools), it is the most commonly used space for officially recognised language certificates.
At present, it’s not possible for users to access the site to obtain exam results and teachers are also unable to register students for exams via the site.
The Local has been told by a source that enquiries and registrations are being handled manually by a small administration team, but that the lack of automation is causing significant delays. We have requested clarification from the Education Ministry on the latest with the DCL site.
