Breakdown of Il est annoncé que la porte est cassée.
être
to be
il
it (impersonal subject)
la porte
the door
annoncer
to announce
Questions & Answers about Il est annoncé que la porte est cassée.
Why do we use il here instead of c' for "it is"?
This sentence uses an impersonal passive construction. When "it" is a dummy subject that doesn't replace a specific noun (like in "It is announced" or "It is said"), standard French requires the impersonal pronoun il. You might hear c'est in casual spoken French, but il is the grammatically correct choice here.
Why is annoncé masculine singular when the rest of the sentence is about a feminine door?
The past participle annoncé only agrees with the grammatical subject of its own clause, which is the impersonal il (always treated as masculine singular). It doesn't look ahead to the next clause. Conversely, cassée agrees with its own subject, the feminine singular noun la porte, so it takes an extra -e.
Is it more natural to use this passive structure or to use on?
Il est annoncé is quite formal and is mostly found in journalism, official notices, or professional settings. In everyday spoken French, it is much more common to use the active voice with the indefinite pronoun on, as in: On annonce que la porte est cassée (They announce / Someone announces that the door is broken).
How would this structure look if the announcement happened in the past?