Black student says she was called ‘monkey’ as she suffered years of racist abuse at £17,000-a-year French private school

A black student has claimed she was called ‘monkey’ and suffered years of racist abuse at a £17,000-a-year private school in London favoured by the Parisian elite.  

Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, in ritzy South Kensington, is run by the Agency for French Education Abroad, with day-to-day supervision overseen by the French embassy in the British capital.  

The Lycée is the educational establishment of choice for the mostly white Parisian professional class, including senior figures in the worlds of banking, diplomacy and academia, The Times reported. 

Scattered across multiple locations in London, the school charges fees of up to £16,923 a year for day pupils.

Writing in the school’s newspaper this week, Gabrielle, a sixth-form pupil described the sustained racism she had experienced while studying there. 

The teenager alleges that she was called a ‘monkey’ and told ‘it is better to be dyslexic than black’ – as well as being exposed to racist jokes on class WhatsApp groups. 

She also says that white pupils asked black students for an ‘N-word pass’ – the right to say the racial slur. 

‘Racism and xenophobia are widespread in all years. Reflecting on my personal experience, I realise that I have always evolved in a school environment where racism persists,’ she wrote.  

Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, in ritzy South Kensington, is run by the Agency for French Education Abroad and charges fees of almost £17,000 for day pupils 

British actress Jacqueline Bisset, pictured here in 2022, is one of the school’s famous alumni

Actress Natasha Richardson (pictured here at a film premiere in 2005) also attended the Lycée

Gabrielle claimed that non-black pupils used the N-word ‘indiscrimately, whenever they want.’

Even more shockingly, she also alleges that racist language was casually deployed by some teachers in a way that likely inspired the pupils to feel comfortable making similar remarks. 

She claims certain teachers made ‘racist and incredibly xenophobic remarks’ to non-white pupils, including ‘king of the jungle’ and ‘close to monkey’. 

She added: ‘There may be a correlation between the teachers’ crude comments and the behaviour of the pupils, amongst whom there is now a tendency to make derogatory ‘jokes’ about what they call dirty Arab and black immigrants.

‘Monkey insults are also very common towards black children, and some boys go so far as to proclaim that they “don’t like black girls”. Many justify their comments by labelling them as humour.’

The teen says that the ‘revolting remarks’ over her seven years at the school have ‘hurt me a lot’ and forced her to ‘build a shield for myself’. 

Her account of racism at the school has reportedly been backed-up by the experiences of parents and other ex-students. 

The mother of a biracial pupil at the school said the article had been a hot topic among pupils and parents – and that she had heard parents of non-white pupils discuss moving their children to other schools due to the racism directed at them. 

Illustrator Quentin Blake, famous for his work on Roald Dahl’s books, was a teacher at the school 

She blamed Parisian Catholics ‘who are quite right-wing’ and said they ‘probably believe there are too many Arabs and immigrants in France’. 

The mother said too often systemic racism was dismissed as ‘teasing’ and that the German-occupation of France during WWII had led to a fear of being deemed a ‘snitch’.  

The Lycée has a number of pupils from French-speaking African countries as well as British children whose families want them to get a bilingual education. 

The school has produced a number of famous alumni including actresses Jacqueline Bisset and Natasha Richardson. 

Former Tory MP Dominic Grieve also attended the school, while illustrator Quentin Blake, famous for his work on Roald Dahl’s books, was a teacher there. 

The article was actually authorised by the Lycée’s headteacher Catherine Bellus-Ferreira, who as appointed in 2023 and is also the ‘director’ of the school newspaper.  

She said she thought the article was ‘courageous’ and thought it shone the spotlight on a ‘real issue’. 

The headteacher said that it was insufficient for the school to simply say ‘we are against dicrimination’, adding: ‘It is important to me that this school struggles against racism.’

British politician and former attorney general Dominic Grieve was another prominent pupil at the school

She said there has been investigations into around a dozen of the school’s 2,000 secondary-school students over the last 12 months. 

Pupils found guilty of racist behaviour face being suspended for eight days and potentially are required to attend mandatory workshops.  

Ms Bellus-Ferreira has helped overhaul the school’s Ofsted rating after it received an ‘inadequate’ in 2023 due to ‘too many weaknesses in how leaders work to keep pupils safe’. 

Last year the school was upgraded to ‘good’ for pastoral care and ‘outstanding’ for education. 

Ms Bellus-Ferreira said it would be dishonest to claim there was no instances of racism at the school, but that it was not ‘a racist school’.  

The Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London has a main site in South Kensington and three additional primary school sites, in Fulham, Clapham, and Ealing.

The school was originally founded near Victoria station in 1915 as the French School of London to take French-speaking refugees from World War I. 

The school was visited by iconic French president General Charles de Gaulle in 1960 and the institution was subsquently named in his honour in 1980. 

The French system is facing a challenging time in the classroom, with 16 ‘serious incidents’ reported per 1,000 pupils in 2023-24, according to a report by the education ministry. 

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