To wonder if UK lycees sometimes hinder the integration of French immigrant kids?

[Carla786]

I was reading Ben Judah's excellent book This Is London recently, about the relative integration of different immigrant groups in London. The focus was mainly on non-Western European immigrants, but there was some mention of the French immigrant population of Kensington.
I went to school there - my school was very near a lycee but I never thought much about it. I'm quite interested in France myself (my mum's a French teacher) and have several French friends (my school had a lot of European immigrants' children), I'm definitely not opposed to French people coming here. I'm just wondering if lycees are always helpful for integration. (Yes, I'm Gen Z- I know people will want to know why I'm on MN : I came for GC issues and stayed for the rest).

Generally we emphasise that it's important for immigrants to integrate with the existing population as much as possible. Lycees give French immigrants' children an education that follows the French curriculum, and I understand from what I've read are generally now composed of almost solely French children, though I understand the pupil cohort used to be more mixed in the past and maybe included more British children. If you grow up in a mainly French immigrant community and go to a lycee with mainly other French immigrant kids, how integrated will you be into the mainstream British population?
Generally when we talk about integration we focus on immigrant groups where sections are involved in crime or who mainly low-skilled. French immigrants are generally neither, so the lycee system isn't much remarked on. While I agree it's not a major concern, I still think it's worthy of comment.

We don't (I think) have lots of similar schools worldwide for the kids of Italian, German, Greek, Spanish, etc immigrants where they learn non-British curriculums. Yes, there are faith schools which sometimes overlap with ethnicity and have different curriculums (though I'd question that too- that topic's not for this thread, though).. I understand that lycees' educational standards are highly regarded & Brits or other immigrant nationalities sometimes send their kids there for that reason, esp since some run a parallel English curriculum(though as I said, the number of non-French pupils is much less now).

Still, I wonder how positive it is to have them if they're increasingly becoming nearly wholly French, and often used by families who are constantly on the move so that their kids can easily switch between lycees?

TLDR : AIBU to wonder if lycees may hinder integration of French immigrant kids if they now teach a French curriculum under the auspices of the French government to mainly French immigrant pupils who live generally in French immigrant-dominated areas? I'm definitely not saying they should be banned or anything, especially as UK state schools are generally bad at the moment..maybe there should be a push for a more mixed pupil cohort though?

It’s an interesting point. I would assume that these are children of French people only intending to be here temporarily (eg diplomats) so they want their children educated such that when they return to France there’s continuity. Is the French embassy round there? It rings a vague bell.

Pretty sure you don’t have to be French to attend but you will be taught in French to the French curriculum.

Same way there are British schools all over the world largely attended by non British children. My Irish family abroad sent their kids to British international schools 🤷‍♀️

Almost every world capital has a British school and an American school. Makes sense for London which is something like the world city with the 8th largest amt of French people to have a lycée

Presumably they sent them to English-speaking international schools, which are, purely in terms of numbers, more likely to be British or American than Irish?

I mean this is just the classic difference between ‘immigrants’ and ‘ex-pats’ isn’t it? Though I’ve never actually researched whether there’s anything more to the difference between those two terms than vaguely colonial/racist stuff - it may be that there is and I just don’t know about it!

Usually the children of expats- by that I mean people from France working on a contract who will eventually go back/elsewhere eg diplomats, foreign companies like Michelin. I live in Central Europe, there's a British school in the city where I live where the UK curriculum is taught in English. It's not unique to London. Don't see the problem, the alternative is boarding school back home.

Just came on to see why lychees were being grown in the UK.

<waves>

Yes? There are also French speaking people who aren’t French.

Not sure why we’re worrying about children attending quite expensive private schools though.

The French Lycee in London costs over £10k a year and goes up as you move through the school years. Its an type of international private school, not a normal school.
American immigrants to the UK don't all send their kids to the American School of London either.

Meant to say, I am not an ex-pat. We are immigrants and our kids are in the local system. Most of the international people I know here stay for 2/3/4 years and then either go back home or onto another posting. One friend has been in the UK, France, Thailand, Mexico and Brazil (she's Portuguese, husband is from UK).

They are private schools.

I know you don't have to be French to go to a lycee. There's an interesting list of famous non-French people who've been to them, including Quentin Blake, Gyles Brandreth, Frances de la Tour & Ben Judah himself. Quite a few Tory MP alumni, too!

But increasingly according to articles, the cohort is mainly French (eg. The main London lycee, Charles de Gaulle, has 9% British pupils). I do think this is negative as French children who go there are essentially then growing up in Little France, especially if they live in a mainly French or at least mainly French-speaking immigrant area.

MN threads from some years back interestingly state 'very few kids are actually French', meaning that many are half-French or London-born but with French colonial heritage like Algerian. This sounds like a better mix .

It's no different to the British School of (substitute Paris/Milan etc). Which is a bubble of Britishness, following the UK curriculum, but has children from all nationalities attending.

The French Lycées exist so that French-educated children can continue their education if their parents move countries, and so that Francophone families can ensure their child is exposed to the French language and culture, especially if they later have to move country.

My DS is at school in France; if we move countries I'll want him to carry on being educated within the French system, as it would prove too confusing to switch him back into the UK system.

There is a German school in London. It even has a piece of the Berlin Wall in the courtyard.

My understanding is that there is a mix of bilingual & bicultural families and German families who are only in london for a fixed period and not as interested in integrating and having their children learn English. Given that at the school they are only speaking German I dont expect the kids differentiate.

Given that the lycee is in south ken I imagine a lot of the kids are not living the typicalBritish teen lifestyle anyway, unless they are travelling quite far twice a day.

Oh, and in France we have lots of international 'sections' within French state schools. The Lycée International has sections for German, Italian, Spanish, American and loads more. The kids spend time being educated in their home language and education system, as well as time within the French system.

I was recently in Kensington and having an early evening drink at an outdoor seating area in a square with bars, cafes and ice cream parlours. It was full of 12-16 year olds who I assume were at a French school (no uniform) and had gone for ice cream after school. They were chatting interchangeably in French and fluent English (knew all the recent slang etc) and behaving no different to the English children (in uniform) nearby. On that basis I would say there was no integration issue that I could see.

This exactly

Mine went to British Schools when we lived in two other European countries. The idea is, especially for mobile families who can move around a lot, it keeps the education consistent. It can be hard on them moving countries several times.

(Theres an English school on an Army base in Scotland and they pay for English speaking children to attend private school in Wales id there's no English school as well for the same reason... consistency).

Same 😭

🤣, sorry! I should've put the accent.

I recently looked at the British School, Paris for my dc. Decided on a different school with more integration but still international/British curriculum. My dc have been to several British schools round the world. One was visited by the late Queen!

They still integrated as I’m sure the French children at the Lycee in London do. The key is to have activities outside of school to integrate and learn language.

That's interesting, I didn't know that.

Would be interested to know which school you picked. I used to work at an international school in Paris (BSP is misleading anyway - it’s not even IN Paris!).

I was also puzzling over the lychee problem.

Me too!

YABU OP. You have no idea how long the families stay in London for.

Other posters are right about the other international lycées in France with multiple language sections (e.g. the one at St-Germain-en-Laye and the one at Sèvres). Similarly, there are many European Schools (and there used to be one in the U.K. too pre-Brexit!) with multiple language sections that closely follow the culture and curriculum of that country. My son attends one and the children in his (FWIW French section!) class do not only come from French backgrounds: they are also British, Lebanese, Canadian, Indian, Japanese, Moldovan, Belgian, Irish, Polish, Dutch, Italian, Greek, Spanish…
Do you also object to those schools?