French president François Hollande is due to inaugurate London’s second French Lycée on Tuesday, reports FRANCE 24.
The Lycée Winston Churchill, which has taken over the old Brent Town Hall building in the shadow of the Wembley football stadium in northwest London, joins the Lycée Charles de Gaulle (also known simply as “The Lycée”), which has been serving the city’s expatriate French community since 1915. It was renamed after the celebrated French general following World War II.
There are also a number of smaller, mostly private, French-language primary schools catering to the estimated 300,000 French citizens living in London.
But the number of institutions doesn’t meet the demands of Londoners – parents who want their children to follow a French school curriculum still face long waiting lists at the Lycée Charles de Gaulle.
Unlike most lycées in France, the two London establishments are fee-paying (around £10,000 a year, or €14,000) and receive financial support from French multinationals present in London as well as from the French state.