🇫🇷 Paris · Schools
Schooling and childcare in Paris
Free state schools allocated by strict street-level sectorisation, a large Catholic sous contrat sector, and international sections inside the public system.
The thing people get wrongThe carte scolaire assigns your child to a specific school by your exact address, not your neighbourhood. Two flats on the same street can feed different collèges, and the school is chosen when you sign the lease whether you meant to choose it or not.
How the state system works
École maternelle runs from three, which is the age at which schooling becomes compulsory in France, followed by école élémentaire, collège from eleven and lycée from fifteen. Enrolment for maternelle and élémentaire goes through the mairie of your arrondissement, which allocates the school by sectorisation; collège and lycée are allocated by the académie, with lycée places in Paris assigned through the Affelnet algorithm. Dérogations to attend a school outside your sector exist but are granted sparingly and on defined grounds.
- Register at the mairie with the lease or a proof of address, the livret de famille or birth certificates, and vaccination records.
- Spring is the normal registration window for the following September.
- Arriving mid-year is handled through the mairie or the académie, subject to space.
- The bac is taken at the end of lycée and the last two years carry continuous assessment that matters.
Sections internationales and bilingual routes
France runs sections internationales inside the state system — free, following the French curriculum with substantial teaching in a partner language, leading to the option internationale of the baccalauréat. They are competitive, entry usually requires a language test in both French and the partner language, and they are concentrated in particular schools in and around Paris. For a family intending to stay, this is often the best value in the city.
- Entry is by examination and is genuinely selective in both languages.
- Sections are attached to specific schools; some sit outside the city, particularly to the west.
- The OIB or baccalauréat français international is recognised by universities internationally.
Private schools, sous contrat and hors contrat
Most French private schools are sous contrat, meaning the state pays the teachers and the curriculum is the national one; they are typically Catholic, fees are modest, and they are a mainstream choice rather than an elite one. Hors contrat schools sit outside that arrangement and include most of the anglophone international schools, which follow British, American or IB curricula at international-sector fees. The difference in cost between the two is very large.
- Sous contrat: national curriculum, low fees, own admissions, often with a religious character.
- Hors contrat: independent curriculum and much higher fees.
- Anglophone international schools cluster in the west of the city and the western suburbs.
Crèche and younger children
Municipal crèche places for the under-threes are allocated by a commission at the mairie, are heavily oversubscribed in Paris, and are means-tested so that fees scale with income. The realistic alternatives are an assistante maternelle — a registered childminder, partly subsidised — or a garde partagée shared between two families. Register with the mairie as early as pregnancy allows, because the commissions meet on a fixed calendar.
- Register the pregnancy with the mairie to enter the crèche allocation process.
- CAF provides means-tested help towards an assistante maternelle or private care.
- École maternelle from three is free and near-universal, which resolves the cost problem at that point.
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