“And, as every one of you knows, when you meet a foreign economic or political leader who learned French in one of our lycées, who went on one of our academic, economic or cultural exchanges, there is something that connects us, there is, at that point, a link, no matter how tenuous, which we can call upon in the worst circumstances and which enables us to sort out a situation, restore common sense, security, stability.”
— Emmanuel Macron, Ambassadors’ Week, 29 August 2017
Disclaimer: This is an interview piece. Any opinions and views expressed belong to the interviewee, and not UPF Lund or the Perspective’s Editorial Board.
Beyond its romantic clichés, its cheese, and its wine, France exports something far more strategic: education. At the heart of this global outreach stands an institution few French people have ever heard of — the AEFE, the Agency for French Education Abroad. Yet it is one of France’s most powerful diplomatic tools.
In this investigation, the interviewee — who works in the agency’s headquarters — asked to remain anonymous for professional reasons and will be called X.
“The French population doesn’t know about the AEFE, or at least doesn’t understand the size of its network or how it’s financed,” X says, having worked at AEFE headquarters for several years. “At the beginning, it was a public service for expatriate families, so French kids abroad could access the same education as at home. But now, there’s definitely a shift.”
To understand that shift, it is necessary to understand the agency’s history. AEFE’s origins go back to the Éducation Française à l’Étranger (EFE), created for employees of major French companies, like Renault, stationed abroad. It was a way to project French schooling wherever French professionals went.
That changed in 2012 under François Hollande, when these institutions became partially privatized. Emmanuel Macron pushed the transformation further with his Cap 2030 project.
Cap 2030 is the government’s plan under its international strategy for the expansion of the French language to double the number of students in the French school network abroad by 2030 — from about 350,000 to 700,000, expecting to attract new families within the French institution.
But the catch is clear: this expansion must happen without a proportional increase in the national budget.
“At the beginning, it was a public service for expatriate families, so French kids abroad could access the same education as at home. But now, there’s definitely a shift.”
This means more reliance on private partnerships, more local investment, more dependence on wealthy families — and less resemblance to a public service.
“By doing this, the essence of AEFE changes,” X adds. “It becomes an investment project. Schools can’t expand without relying on the local bourgeoisie and elite.”
The AEFE network now operates like a hybrid: publicly funded, diplomatically oriented, but functioning like a premium international school system in practice. Its global budget is roughly €1.2 billion per year. About half of that comes from the French state (i.e., taxpayers). The remaining half comes from tuition fees.
“The French people don’t know that a part of their taxes is used to finance the AEFE and upper-class families sending their kids there,” X insists. “We are financing wealthy families abroad while abandoning the ones in France who are struggling.”
Meanwhile, inside France — especially in rural regions, the DROMs (French Overseas Departments), and working-class suburbs — public schools face staff shortages, infrastructure decay, and shrinking budgets.
“We are financing wealthy families abroad while abandoning the ones in France who are struggling.”
“When you look at DROMs, some people don’t even have access to running water,” X recalls. “Even where I come from in the mainland, the local schools are left to rot. And then you see AEFE schools abroad with private swimming pools and football fields. It’s our colonial legacy — the outskirts, where residents are mostly descendants of immigrants, are not treated like citizens.”
Beyond its academic reputation, AEFE plays a less visible but major role: diplomatic influence.
“During seminars, directors are reminded of their diplomatic role,” X explains. “They are invited to embassies, they meet local authorities. AEFE doesn’t fall under the Ministry of Education. It belongs to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
The logic is simple. Educate the children of foreign elites in French schools, shape their worldview, and build long-term loyalty toward France. On their website, the well-known alumni are proudly displayed with their origin country next to their names: “Carlos Ghosn (Lebanon), Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt), Ingrid Betancourt (Colombia), Jodie Foster (United States), Marjane Satrapi (Austria), Jonathan Littell (United States) and Atiq Rahimi (Afghanistan).” Taking a good example out of that list would be: Boutros-Boutros Ghali. The Egyptian ex-minister of Foreign Affairs, then 6th Secretary General of the United Nations, was part of the AEFE network through the Collège de la Sainte-Famille of Cairo. After leaving the UN, he then served as the first Secretary-General of La Francophonie from 1997 to 2002. It takes one search to notice the pedigree of the alumni list of each AEFE school.
X gives an example: “In Latin America, all the local elites put their kids in French schools. You can literally see French influence at work. AEFE is one side of a very dense network. Even here in France, public personalities, the bourgeoisie and politicians had their own children in the AEFE, or if not, close family members and friends did.”
The AEFE could perhaps be described as an elite club. Schools in the same region collaborate closely, forming tight transnational communities and helping each other in case of a crisis. By contrast, the American or British systems are fragmented and driven by private investors whose schools rarely interact with one another.
But the model is not invincible. In recent years, AEFE has suffered from France’s declining political presence in certain regions, notably in Africa, where Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have been detaching themselves from France by changing national curriculum and downgrading French to a working language.
“French influence goes hand in hand with its military influence,” X says. “Now that France cannot rely on the same colonial mechanisms, it tries a round-about way: influence the local elites, teach them French republican values, and help them into positions of power. That’s neo-colonialism.”
Soft power replaces hard power — but the objective remains the same: maintain a sphere of influence.
“Inside AEFE, they fully embrace the fact that they are cultivating an elite identity,” X says. “They’re developing an AEFE Alumni Network specifically to maintain the interests of a certain social class. AEFE students have access to prestigious universities and information that people in France — unless they’re bourgeois — don’t have.”
In the end, AEFE is more than a school network. It is the modern face of French soft power — an empire of classrooms, where the Republic educates the world’s elites while its own children pay the price.
By Sofia Mina Pessina
11 December, 2025
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