Le Futur Antérieur (Indicatif)

French Future Perfect

Written by Qualified French Expert Aurélie Drouard HKH, Licence d'anglais LLCE
Last updated: 2023-03-25

Le futur antérieur is the future perfect tense of the indicative mood. It's used to express actions that will happen before other actions in the future: it could be called 'the past of the future'.

In English, the future perfect is formed with ''will have'' + past participle of the verb, in French le futur antérieur is formed with avoir or être in le futur + past participle.

For example 

Même si ça ne marche pas, tu auras vraiment mis tout en œuvre pour réussir.Even if it doesn't work, you will certainly have made every effort to succeed.

Vous aurez eu une belle vie après tout.You will have had a good life after all.
  

See also: French Futur and All French tenses

Lessons with more detail on Le Futur Antérieur (Indicatif)

Ne ... pas = Not - with compound tenses (French Negations)
Conjugate avoir/être/faire and other irregular verbs in the future perfect in French (Le Futur Antérieur)
Conjugate vouloir/pouvoir/devoir in the future perfect in French (Le Futur Antérieur)
Conjugate regular -er, -ir, -dre verbs (+ avoir) in the future perfect in French (Le Futur Antérieur)
Conjugate verbs (+ être) in the future perfect in French (Le Futur Antérieur)
Quand/lorsque/après que/une fois que + future perfect (Le Futur Antérieur) = When/after I've done something in the future (Sequence of Tenses in French)
By + [point in time] = d'ici [moment] in French
Clever stuff happening!