“Copie intégrale” vs “extrait”

French-speaking civil registries issue the same underlying record in more than one shape, and the words distinguishing them are not decorative. Reading an instruction sheet correctly here saves a repeat application.

The three shapes

• Copie intégrale — a full reproduction of the register entry: the event, the person, the parents, and every annotation added afterwards. This is what an authority wants when it needs to see the complete history.
• Extrait avec filiation — an extract that gives the main data plus the parents’ names. Enough for most family and nationality procedures.
• Extrait sans filiation — the same without the parents. Used where parentage is irrelevant and privacy is preferred.

In English the nearest terms are “full copy” or “long-form certificate” against “short-form extract”. Anyone who has dealt with Canadian provincial registries will recognise the long-form and short-form distinction; it is the same idea.

The Turkish counterparts

Türkiye does not use these three labels, but it has the same distinction. The population registry record with events (vukuatlı nüfus kayıt örneği) lists family members and the events recorded against them, and behaves like a full copy. The plain registry extract is closer to an extrait. The multilingual international form, described in the multilingual extract entry, is an extract and never a full copy.

So when a francophone authority asks for a copie intégrale de l’acte de naissance, the multilingual extract you were about to order is the wrong document, however convenient it would have been.

What these terms do not mean

• “Copie” does not mean a photocopy. It is an official issue from the register, produced and signed by the registry — not a copy you make of a document you already hold.
• “Intégrale” does not mean certified or apostilled. It describes how much of the record is reproduced, nothing about certification.
• An extract is not an abridged full copy. Where later annotations matter, an extract may omit exactly the entry the authority is looking for — see marginal notes.
• Neither is permanently valid. Most offices want an issue dated within a recent window, whichever shape you send.

How to ask, in practice

Put the question to the receiving office in its own words: does it want the complete record with parentage and annotations, or an extract? Then request that version in Türkiye and translate that version. Ordering the translation before this is settled is how the same record ends up being translated twice.