Many parents start by writing to the AEFE, the Agency for French Education Abroad, to enrol their child. It goes nowhere. The agency runs the network of French schools abroad, but it does not enrol pupils; its own website tells families to contact the school directly. At the start of the 2026 school year the network had 640 schools in 140 countries and more than 400,000 pupils, a third of them French. Each school has its own calendar, forms and priorities, inside a common framework that few families know well.
Three types of school, and why it matters to you
"AEFE school" covers three quite different set-ups. The AEFE online directory shows each school's status and which year groups are accredited ("homologué", meaning recognised by the French Ministry of Education), and the status explains much of what a family will experience.
| Directly run (EGD) | Contracted (conventionné) | Partner (partenaire) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run by | The AEFE itself: the school is part of the agency | A local association or foundation, under an agreement with the AEFE | A private body, under a partnership agreement |
| Teachers | French state teachers, paid by the agency | Partly French state teachers posted by the agency | Hired by the school, not by the AEFE |
| Fees | Set by the AEFE's director on the school's proposal | Set by the governing body | Set by the governing body |
Sources: AEFE, "Les établissements d'enseignement français en réseau"; financial regulations of the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London for fee-setting in directly run schools.
A partner school gets no teachers paid for by the agency, and that shows up in the fees. In London the Good Schools Guide makes the point about the Lycée Winston Churchill, and the gap runs from £12,557 at secondary level in the directly run lycée to more than £30,000 at some partner schools; French schools in London has the full comparison.
Check one thing before anything else: accreditation may cover only some year groups. A school accredited from age 4 to the end of primary is not accredited for its 3-year-olds. That matters for the grant and for the next move.
Who gets in first
The AEFE says many schools keep a waiting list on which only complete files are considered, with priority "within the limit of available places" for children of French nationality coming from a state or state-contracted school in France or from an accredited school abroad. It then lists siblings, age and school record. In 2015, the administrative court of appeal in Versailles confirmed that in directly run and contracted schools, French pupils have priority over foreign pupils.
Each school applies this framework its own way, which is where families go wrong. Some rank by date of application, so applying early wins places. Others break ties by ballot, and the date stops mattering. The Lycée Charles de Gaulle in London does not even mention nationality in its criteria: it ranks children by the school they come from, then draws a date and favours children born closest to it (see the London Lycée article). Before filling in any form, I read the target school's own criteria document, not the agency's general page.
The entrance test, and what it is allowed to decide
A French child coming from an accredited school, or from a state school in France, does not sit an admission exam. An AEFE note to head teachers in February 2023 put it plainly: French pupils' schooling cannot depend on passing a test, and for those coming from non-accredited schools, a test can only set the year group, not decide admission. It does not create places, though; priority still applies only within the places available.
For a child from a foreign system, assessment is the rule. The agency says there are no past papers, and that for nursery-age children the assessment takes the form of play. In secondary, in London as in New York, it means a written test in French and maths, and some schools admit no one into the last two years of the lycée from outside the French system. In maths, what these pupils most often lack is the habit of writing solutions in French, calculating without a calculator, and justifying each step. The Lycée Français de New York is a worked example of such a test.
The CNED, the French state's distance-learning service, works as a bridge in both directions. Its decisions on year groups are valid in any French school, in France or abroad, and several schools rank its pupils ahead of children from local systems.
Fees, and the ones you never get back
Three items appear everywhere: a one-off first-registration fee, an annual registration fee, and tuition. The AEFE publishes no averages or ranges, only that fees vary by country and school. I collected the 2026-2027 fee schedules of nine French schools for seconde, from about €4,400 in Casablanca to €46,000 in New York: they are compared in my guide to French schools abroad. They are fixed for the year and do not change mid-year, except in a currency crisis.
The first-registration fee is what catches families out. It often has to be paid within days of the offer, before the child arrives, and it is frequently neither refundable nor transferable. In London it reaches £1,800 and is lost if the child does not start on the date set by the school. The same 2023 note says enrolment must not depend on paying tuition in advance, while registration fees are collected at the start of the year.
French government school grants, a separate process
The French state's school grants ("bourses scolaires") do not go through the school. Families apply at the consulate or on the Scolaide platform, and the application is assessed separately from enrolment. The conditions all apply together: the child is French, the family is on the consular register of French citizens abroad, the child lives with at least one parent in the country, attends an accredited year group, and the family receives no family allowance in France.
The calculation starts from a family quotient, net of school fees and adjusted for the local cost of living. Below €3,000 the theoretical grant covers everything; it then tapers to €23,000, above which the family is not eligible. Assets count as much as income: depending on the post, families are excluded from €50,000 or €100,000 in savings, and from €150,000 to €300,000 in property, wherever it is, a flat in France included. The grant is paid to the school, which deducts it from the bill, and it has to be applied for again every year.
Example: the 2026-2027 round.
For northern-hemisphere countries, the campaign opened in January 2026, with a first consular board in April and a national commission in June. A second period, from July to September, covers families who arrived after the first closing date, with a consular board in October and a national commission in December. Southern-hemisphere countries start in July.
For the previous year, the national commission of December 2025 approved 18,578 grants worth €89.3 million in northern-hemisphere countries.
Sources: AEFE instruction on school grants of 16 January 2026; France Diplomatie.
What families find out too late
Expat forum stories look alike from one city to the next. On expat.com, parents moving to Singapore without a kindergarten place describe putting their child in a local or American school for a year, then joining the French lycée in CP (Year 2), and advise living near the school to keep French-speaking friends close. In London, families describe signing up for several waiting lists at once, sometimes years ahead. Lepetitjournal.com notes that a first grant application usually requires an appointment with the consulate's grants office, best booked early.
Then come more technical traps that I see again and again. The year group follows the calendar year of birth, not a September cut-off as in English-speaking countries. At some schools, a parent who fails to e-sign the online file in time gets it cancelled. The child's residence permit decides whether they can start. And a place at a partner school does not automatically open the door of the directly run lycée in the same city, even when the two exchange pupils every year.
For a family that will one day return to France, accreditation also keeps the way home open: a move into a state school without an exam, and grades that Parcoursup, the French university admissions platform, can read, with the limits described in Parcoursup for returning expats.
With a family, I first place the child within each possible school's criteria, then line up the timetables for enrolment, the grant and the move, which almost never match. At Carmine we work with around twenty families a year, from choosing the school to preparing the entrance test; our school entry page describes how.