In November 2025 France published a national preparedness guide for households. At its centre is a 72-hour emergency kit, the kit d'urgence. Here is exactly what it lists, and how it compares with the other 23 guides we compiled.
The official guide
- Title: Tous responsables. Face aux risques, agissons : bien préparés, bien protégés, tous engagés
- Publisher: SGDSN, the General Secretariat for Defence and National Security
- Date: November 2025
- Horizon: 72 hours
- Link: SGDSN guide (PDF, French)
The guide's reasoning is simple: when a crisis strikes, the first 72 hours are often the hardest. If you can look after yourself, the emergency services can concentrate on people in serious difficulty.
Three key principles
The guide organises the kit around three needs in a crisis: drinking and eating, keeping warm, and looking after your health. Every item on the list serves one of them, plus a few extras: light, information from the authorities, documents and something to pass the time.
Water: 6 litres per person
The checklist asks for 6 litres of bottled water per person, which is 2 litres a day for three days. It even leaves a blank for the sum: 6 × the number of people in your home. A family of four needs 24 litres.
As a last resort, it adds water purification tablets.
The checklist, section by section
Basic equipment
- Multi-purpose knife
- Can opener
- A small stove (réchaud)
- Battery radio, to follow instructions from the authorities
- Power bank, spare batteries and a phone charger
- Soap
Water and food
Food that keeps and needs no cooking. The illustrated list shows tins, baby food jars, ready-to-use first-stage infant milk, coffee and tea, jam, instant mash, and pet food.
Staying warm and having light
- Torch, with spare batteries
- Candles, matches and a lighter
- Warm clothes
- A foil survival blanket
Medicines and a first-aid kit
- Your everyday medicines, both regular treatment and emergency ones
- A spare pair of glasses
- Alcohol and hand gel
- Masks
- Plasters and compresses
Something to pass the time
Games and books.
Essential documents and keys
- Spare house and car keys
- Photocopies of identity papers, in a waterproof pouch
- Prescriptions
- Cash, in case cash machines stop working
How France compares
Our data counts 27 items in the French list. None of them is rare: everything it asks for appears in at least five of the 24 guides. Nor does it leave out anything listed by 18 or more guides. It covers all six items that every one of the 24 guides lists: water, a torch, a radio, a first-aid kit, personal medicines and cash.
A few details stand out:
- Ready-to-use infant milk. Liquid first-stage formula needs no clean water, which matters if the supply is cut.
- Spare keys. Only seven guides list them.
- Games and books. Seven guides think of days without screens; France is one of them.
- Masks in the first-aid kit, which only nine guides list.
What it does not include: water containers to fill from the tap, sleeping bags, bin bags or anything for a toilet that won't flush. Those come from the longer guides, such as Germany's and Sweden's.
Where to keep it, and when to check it
The guide says to put the kit somewhere easy to reach. Twice a year, check the contents, including the use-by dates of medicines and food, and replace the batteries. It also leaves space to note where your kit is and the date you put it together.
Build yours
Our checklist follows the French list item by item and scales the quantities for your household. If you are starting with one thing, start with water: here is how much to store. For the food side, see emergency food that needs no cooking.