How do you say “I don’t care” in French? Well, surprisingly, there are a few ways you can say that phrase to signify varying degrees of indifference.

I’m going to start with the most polite or harmless ways to show indifference. As the list progresses, we’ll show outright rude ways to essentially say, “I don’t give a f***.”

Polite Indifference

Ça m’est égal [pronounced: saw mayt-aygal] is one of the best ways to show indifference without coming off in a harsh manner. It translates to “it’s equal to me.”

Essentially indicating that both choices are valid options and you don’t really mind which one is chosen.

Peu importe is a succinct way to say “I don’t care.” The literal translation turns into “of little importance.”

Je me fiche is a more colloquial and popular way to show you don’t care. This is one of my personal favorites.

And finally, je m’en moque is a bit more dated way to say “I don’t care.” But it’s still taught in French class.

Beginner adjustment:

If you wanted to translate the “I don’t care,” to something like “you don’t care,” you would need to change the subject pronoun (je), the reflexive indicator (me) and the verb conjugation itself.

For example:

Je m’en fiche → I don’t care
Tu t’en fiches → You don’t care

Advanced adjustment:

Another grammatical note is that “en” represents what you don’t care about. A full sentence would be, je me fiche de ce qu’ils disent → I don’t care about what they say.

Shortened, this is je m’en fiche → I don’t care about it, where “en” replaces the phrase and is placed appropriately in the sentence.

Rude Indifference

So, what are some more rude or vulgar ways of saying “I don’t care” in French?

One of the first expressions I learned was je m’en fous. It’s the classic English way of saying, “I don’t give a fuck.” Although, the severity of the f-bomb here isn’t quite as harsh as it is in English… it’s still pretty bad.

Stemming from that is another expression: j’en ai rien à foutre. This also means “I don’t give a fuck.” And for some reason, you hear this in songs a lot.

Check out this article if you need more creative ways on how to drop the f-bomb in French.

Je m’en bats les couilles has become a hugely popular expression. In literal terms, this means “I slap my balls on it.”

And I know you’re wondering… yes ladies, you can use this phrase too.

The English translation could be best aligned to, “I don’t give a shit” or “I don’t give a damn.”

Je m’en branle, this literally means “I’m masturbating over it.” Because what’s more French than putting that image in someone’s mind?

And lastly, je m’en balek is another vulgar way of showing indifference for the younger crowd.

There are several other ways of saying you don’t care in French. But I decided to share these nine as they are the most commonly used in French speech.

If you have any extra ways to say I don’t care then feel free to share them below. I care about your comments 😏