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?

@Carla786
Mais avez vous pensé a regarder, ne serait-ce qu'un peu, les stat avant de poser vos constats?

The Office for National Statistics estimates that 189,000 French-born immigrants were resident in the UK in 2020.[9]

20% of the population is under 20 in the UK ( see image).

LFCG is 3 till 18 as is Lycée International de Londres Winston Churchill ( lets be generous and say 0-20 for our sums)

Enrollment at LFCG is 3500
Enrollment at Lycée International de Londres Winston Churchill is 1100

40% of students at LFCG are French per their website (http://www.lyceefrancais.org.uk/a-propos/notre-etablissement-2/)
40% of students at Lycée International de Londres Winston Churchill are french (https://www.lyceeinternational.london/decouvrir/mission-valeurs-et-histoire/?lang=fr)

So first little sum 189 000 x 20% 37 800 - Estimate of french children between 0 and 20 in the UK

Total Enrollment of LFCG + LIWC = 4600 x 40% = total amount of French kids at LFCG + LIWC = 1840

1840 as a percentage of 37800 = 4.87%

Why are you so worked up over how and where under 5% of French immigrant or Expat children get educated?

In the UK primary and secondary combined there are 9,032,426 pupils https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics/2024-25 So the 1840 french nationals at LFCG and LIWC represent 0.02% of pupils in the UK.

And even as you say in your last post french pupils are 80% and not 40 for both of the lycées in London we would still only be talking about under half a percentage point of pupils in the UK....

I agree Britain has many international schools. As I've explained, I think London's highly diverse/foreign-born population makes stuff like lycees more comment-worthy. Though if someone in Vienna or Geneva etc wants to do a thread on British expat & immigrant kids not integrating, they'd be well within their rights to, imo.

I agree re military kids, engineers etc being international. But most people aren't in those jobs. I've agreed that some people will always need to be international, that's fine.

Merci, c'est tres utile. I agree that a major flaw of my OP has been the ongoing lack of clarity over what the cohort of most lycees is . So, if only 40% of the pupils are French, why have several pps said it's very hard now for non-French speakers to get in & most pupils are Expat kids? Confusing...

BTW, are there really only 2 lycees in London?

I guess I meant French schools in general, I know some are not official lycees. Thus seems to indicate more than 2.

https://international-french-schools.co.uk/#:~:text=London%E2%80%8B,Londres%20Winston%20Churchill%E2%80%8B%E2%80%8B

https://www.independentschoolparent.com/school/london-schools/top-of-the-class-londons-bilingual-schools/

but even if the cohort was 100% percent French - We would be talking about 10% of french children in the UK maximum and still under half a percentage point of total students .... Given the size of the sample the make up of the cohort is barely relevant....

You're clearly hung up on something re the french and their "integration" - If you ask a concise question maybe you'll get a better response.

French people when abroad send their kids to french lycées abroad for many reasons but some of them being because

• the curriculum is standardized where ever you are in the world so if you move your kids education doesn't get disrupted
• they are highly subsidized for french nationals abroad and often for expats employers will pay so its private school for "cheap" (cheap being relative here)
• French Lycées abroad are highly regarded back in France
• French Public University is basically free and having been in a lycée français à l'étranger pretty much garanties access to a course of your choice
• French "Grandes Ecoles" are often interested in "recruiting" ex lycée français kids for the concours as most kids who have been in Lycée Francais a l'étranger will speak French + The langage of the country they were in + English and have a higher academic level than if they were from a french state school in France as well as the advantages of third culture kids.

Expats and immigrants are allowed to be homesick, they are allowed to think they may return home at one point, they are allowed to project that onto their children and above all people are allowed to want what they think is good or best for their children.

Thanks for the explanation, that makes it a lot clearer. As I've said, I think it can also get blurred when people use 'expat' who aren't there for job reasons, it's more that they're vague about whether they want to settle or not & so want to be non-committal.

These are the only actually French ones - the others will be partners and teach in French but are not "french schools" - So even LIWC isn't "French"

https://aefe.gouv.fr/fr/etablissements?pays=Royaume-Uni&ville=Londres&niveau_scolaire=All&nom=&statut=P

This is the list of partner schools - but they aren't "french" they're just bilingual and teach some classes in French.

I don't mean there'd be major culture clash/alienation for kids there : obviously this is unlikely if bilingual, well-educated etc.

It does sound a bit of a bubble,as you say.. I get it being cheaper etc than other schools nearby. Otoh I do find it a bit hard to understand why someone would settle here yet want their child to be educated as if in France- surely if you move to Britain it'd make more sense to give a British education?

Hmm...I see what you mean, but otoh unless there as a Chinese immigrant community nearby with whom they were going to school, presumably they were just going to a different school? In which case they might well have been integrated/made friends etc with the local population.

Hmm...I agree re the 'not feeling local' being a possible issue.

I'm not sure of the wider issue is a small one. As I said in OP, Judah mentioned the French community as just one of the many who make London one of the most international cities, and the book was discussing the pros & cons of that. So that led me to think a bit more about the French community specifically and lycees, especially as they're one of the less-dicussed London communities but also one of the largest at around 300,000: apparently London is known to some as 'France's sixth biggest city'.

Tbf the different names given to London show the silliness of the wilder scare narratives about it. If you're Melanie Phillips, it's been 'Londonistan' since the early 2000s. If you're Putin's henchmen, as Ben Judah has also reported, it's 'Londongrad' or 'Moskva-on-Thames'. If you're this year's Daily Telegraph, it's the emblem of the fearful 'Yookay'. Of course, it can't exactly be all these things at once : yet there's truth in them all. There are a lot of issues caused by the very fast internationalisation of London, but there's also plenty of pros..

I appreciate the OP is declaring herself to be very young, but she seems to be totally unaware that every capital city around the globe has THOUSANDS of diplomats and their families. Further upthread she suggests that there aren't many expats living in Japan...
She grumbles that expats/diplomats etc are using up London housing that should be used for Londoners.
It's all a massive wind up or she's panic writing an essay.

@BoudiccaRuled

I think you’re right and she may be very young and un/ill informed -

however, I think, I’m not sure, but I do think, that if you replaced “French/France” in the OPs posts by another nationality/ethinicity she would come across as, at best, totally detached from the realities of modern day life in big cities and socio economic realities of first world immigrants/expats and at worse as a ignorant xenophobic bigot.

Multiple times she has been told by multiple posters why certain people choose lycées for their children - she chooses not to respond to those posts.

She also seems to have no idea of scale and significance. No idea that most capital cities are not representative of their countries at all. (London is not the UK, Paris is not France, New York Is not the US, Vienna is not Austria, Mumbai is not India etc etc).

Im also not sure where she is getting her facts from because they don’t match official numbers I’ve found on Insee or the ONS.

I do hope for her sake it’s a wind up because if it is for an essay - alors elle n’aurait pas la moyenne car elle est hors-sujet!

Bref!

Going back to my day now.

Because they don’t want a British education. They’ve heard all about overstretched state schools and kids running riot and time spent (wasted) on PE and art. They think the French education system is better. They might move countries quite frequently and the French system allows you to do that. They want their DC to go to French universities in the main. They might not settle here. Eg, one friend of mine attended the lycée for just a year before his parents moved back to Paris. My daughter’s friend at the lycée spent two years there before moving to live with grandparents in Paris (without her parents) and then returning at age 16. Left again at 19.

I've mentioned in earlier posts how friends & acquaintances at my school I felt had quite London-centric/internationalist etc views, & to some extent seemed disconnected from the wider country.

But that's just London. You'll find people across the UK complaining the news is too London-centric, that people deciding public transport policy don't understand it's not like London provision etc. We talk about the Westminster bubble and things like that. If you grew up in rural Cornwall or the Scottish Highlands or a depressed Welsh industrial town that lost all its industry, you probably do feel very disconnected from London. It's possible that lycées and other International schools might exacerbate those feelings of disconnect (not unlike a failing state comprehensive vs a top public school, perhaps,) but it's certainly not unique to schools.

"Eg. EU benefiting Londoners more than other areas"

Interested in why you think this.

EU funding targeted economically disadvantaged areas - my region in the north got significant EU funding for huge projects to improve the local community, and lost a lot from leaving the EU.

Which UK regions receive the most EU funding? This sets out which areas received most EU funding (Cornwall, Wales etc). London and the South East received the least.

Living somewhere that received a high level of EU funding correlates with voting Leave, and receiving a low level of funding correlates with Remain. This is because poorer areas were more likely to vote Leave and they're sadly also the areas now suffering most from the fact that we have left.

That's interesting: did your region vote Leave or Remain? I presume Remain?

Sorry, that was to StellaAndCrow!

That's really strange: why would areas receiving funding not vote Remain? Did they feel the funding wasn't being used efficiently?

I get London received less, however people who came due to EU would have benefited from that, also businesses who employed EU workers

There must be more to the story : was the vote a cultural protest them? Seems odd to vote something like that solely on cultural issues if the economy is going well.

It's fair to say Japan's foreign-born population in Tokyo is only 5%. Ours is 40%. Completely different scale.

Not that I think we should copy Japan. I'm just saying the scale is nor comparable.

I agree re capitals not necessarily being representative : but it's still fair to say that London is much more diverse than most other European capitals :

https://voxeurop.eu/en/the-map-of-the-cities-with-the-most-number-of-inhabitants-born-in-another-country/

Which of my numbers are not matching up? If I've made statistical mistakes, I apologise.

@Carla786, you seem to have a very limited understand of the issue.

According to the OIF, over 300 million people worldwide speak French. Not every French speaker is a French national. There are French-speaking populations in Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, and in many former French and Belgian colonies.

Sorry, I didn't put 2 & 2 together. I did think of colony speakers etc but didn't compute that they wouldn't be French nationals.

Ofc, that makes sense. It doesn't disprove my point that going to a French-curriculum school with mostly French/Belgian or French colony (incl Canada) is clearly different from a British education, and that probably most people going will then be expats or francophone-descended.