Ask in any Riviera parents’ Facebook group about affordable English-language schooling. Someone will eventually mention a school that nobody can quite name: English-speaking teachers, not quite a full international school, not too expensive. What they’re describing is almost always a section internationale [international section]: a selective English-language stream inside an ordinary French public school. It’s one of the least understood options for expat families on the Côte d’Azur, largely because the name itself is the barrier. You can’t search for something you don’t know the term for.

This guide covers every public school in the Alpes-Maritimes running an English section internationale, from primary through lycée [high school]. It explains how admission actually works and what it actually costs, since most of these sections aren’t free, contrary to what the “public school” label suggests. See the main guide to English-speaking schools for the private international and bilingual alternatives.

What a section internationale actually is

A section internationale is not a separate school. It’s a selective stream inside a regular French public school (école [primary school], collège [middle school], or lycée) where part of the timetable is taught in a foreign language, most often English, alongside French and foreign literature classes in that language. Students still work towards standard French qualifications: the brevet [middle school leaving certificate] at collège, the baccalauréat at lycée. An internationally oriented option sits on top at the senior end, the Baccalauréat Français International (BFI), which replaced the older OIB (option internationale du baccalauréat) designation.

This makes it fundamentally different from the private international and bilingual schools covered in the main schools guide. There’s no separate campus and no separate curriculum. It’s the French national curriculum, delivered at a public school, with a genuine English-medium stream built in and an entry test to get a place in it. What it isn’t, in most cases, is free. Several of the sections below are administered by a parent association that charges its own tuition, on top of the school being a normal, free, public school for every other student.

The Nice académie [regional education authority] covers the whole of the French Riviera from Menton to Cannes. Across it, sections internationales exist in eight languages (English, German, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, and Russian), with more than 1,900 students enrolled as of the 2025-2026 school year. This guide only covers the English-language sections.

Public primary schools with English sections near Sophia Antipolis

Two primary schools in the Sophia Antipolis area run English-language international sections, both administered in partnership with ASEICA (Association pour le Soutien de l’Enseignement International sur la Côte d’Azur), a parent association that has run these programmes for over 40 years alongside the French education ministry.

École Sartoux in Valbonne, inside the Sophia Antipolis technology park, has run an English section since 1988. Children selected through testing split their week 50/50: 12 hours of French instruction and 12 hours of English, following the standard French primary curriculum in both languages. Classes run from CP through CM2 (roughly ages 6 to 11), with 20 to 27 pupils per class.

École des Trois Collines in Mougins-le-Haut has run a British international section since a 2008 ministerial order. It’s smaller, with three international-section classes across the primary years (around 24 pupils per class).

Both schools’ English stream is fee-based through ASEICA membership, not free. Registration has to go through both the school itself and ASEICA directly. Children need a genuine grasp of both English and French to be admitted, with the bar rising at each grade.

Public middle schools (collèges) with English sections across the region

Seven collèges in the Alpes-Maritimes run, or are about to run, an English-language section internationale. An eighth, Collège International Joseph Vernier in Nice, is often grouped with these but doesn’t actually offer English. Its sections are in Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, and Russian only, worth knowing so you don’t apply expecting an English option that isn’t there.

There are two entirely separate funding models behind these seven, which is why some are free and others aren’t. Éganaude, Niki de Saint Phalle, César, and CIV’s Collège International are administered by ASEICA, the parent association, and charge fees. Antoine Risso, Gérard Philipe, and Albert Camus belong to a newer ministry initiative called RECT (Réseau égalité des chances et des territoires). It’s an equal-opportunity programme launched in 2023 that funds free British sections directly, with no ASEICA involvement. The académie’s own text on the RECT rollout is explicit: “un accès gratuit et ouvert à tous les élèves motivés… sections internationales anglophones sans frais supplémentaires pour les familles” [free access, open to all motivated students… English-language international sections with no additional fees for families].

CollègeLocationSectionSinceFundingFees
Collège de l’ÉganaudeBiotEnglish, Italian2004ASEICAFees apply
Collège Antoine RissoNiceBritish2025RECTFree
Collège Gérard PhilipeCannesBritishOpens Sept 2026RECTFree
Collège Albert CamusMandelieu-la-NapouleBritishOpens Sept 2026RECTFree
Collège Niki de Saint PhalleValbonneEnglish2004ASEICAFees apply
Collège CésarRoquefort-les-PinsAmerican2012ASEICAFees apply
Collège International (part of CIV)ValbonneAmerican—ASEICAFees apply

Collège Antoine Risso, in Nice, was the first of the free RECT-funded sections, and remains one of the most useful finds in this whole guide: no ASEICA involvement, no additional fees for families. It opened for the 2025-2026 school year after ministry approval in January 2025, making it Nice’s first-ever collège-level British international section. In 6ème, the section adds five hours a week on top of the standard 25-hour timetable, roughly 10 hours of English total, split between British language and literature, “core” English, and history-geography taught in English. Admission is by application file plus written and oral tests. For the first intake in 2025, the written test (30 minutes, level A1) and oral test (10 minutes, level A1) ran in late April, though exact dates shift year to year.

Collège Gérard Philipe, in Cannes, and Collège Albert Camus, in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, are the two to watch if you’re closer to Cannes or Antibes than Nice or Biot. Both are opening free RECT-funded British sections for the 2026-2027 school year, on the same model as Risso: 10 hours a week of English in 6ème, an oral and written test at A1 level, no fees. Application files for the first intake at both schools are due by 3 April 2026. Neither school has opened its section yet as of this guide’s fact-check date, so confirm current details directly: Gérard Philipe at ce.0061174u@ac-nice.fr, Albert Camus at ce.0061175V@ac-nice.fr. Students from either school can continue to the baccalauréat, though as of this writing there’s no free RECT-funded lycée section yet on the Cannes side. The académie has said a Cannes-area lycée section is planned but not yet open. That leaves CIV’s fee-paying lycée (below) as the main continuation route for now.

Collège de l’Éganaude, in Biot, is the closest of the ASEICA-fee-based schools to Antibes, sitting between Antibes and Sophia Antipolis. It’s likely the school parents half-remember when they describe “a school near Antibes with English-speaking teachers.” Its English section has run since 2004. Entry is mainly at 6ème [first year of collège, roughly age 11], with written and oral tests in English and French run by the Inspection Académique. Entry at other year groups is possible only in exceptional cases, once the school confirms a student’s English is strong enough to keep up.

Collège Niki de Saint Phalle, in Valbonne, has also run an English section since September 2004 (an Italian section was added in 2008).

Collège César, in Roquefort-les-Pins, has run its American international section since September 2012, with 6 to 8 hours a week of English language and literature plus 2 hours of humanities taught in English. Students are admitted either because they’re already bilingual or after passing an entrance test assessing their capacity to learn in a second language.

Collège International, part of the Centre International de Valbonne (CIV) campus, runs a section internationale américaine [American international section]. See the main schools guide for the full CIV write-up, since it spans collège and lycée together.

Public high schools (lycées) with an English section: one nearby option, one free but distant

This is where the picture narrows sharply, and where it’s easy to get misled: Lycée Masséna in Nice, despite being the city’s best-known public lycée, does not run an English section internationale. Its two sections internationales are Arabic and Portuguese only. Parents occasionally mention Masséna in the same breath as English-medium options because of its strong general language reputation, but there’s no English international-section pathway there. It’s worth ruling out explicitly so you don’t build a plan around it.

The only public lycée-level English section internationale actually on the Côte d’Azur is the section internationale américaine at Lycée International, the lycée half of the Centre International de Valbonne (CIV). It’s fee-paying, like the CIV collège section above. It’s also where students from the ASEICA-affiliated collèges above typically continue if they want to carry an English section through to the baccalauréat. Students following it sit the BFI rather than the standard bac: roughly 5 hours a week of English literature, 2 hours of history-geography in English (plus 2 in French), and 2 hours of Contemporary Studies focused on the English-speaking world, on top of the standard French lycée curriculum. See the main schools guide for the full CIV write-up.

Admission is changing for 2026 entry, worth knowing about if your child is already in a collège section internationale. Starting with the September 2026 intake, every student entering Seconde [the first year of lycée, roughly age 15] has to sit an entrance test for the lycée’s American section, whether or not they already came from an international section at collège. Application files are submitted between 1 December 2025 and 13 February 2026, followed by a 90-minute written exam and a 15-minute oral exam in English, plus a French-language motivation interview. Students arriving from a school that isn’t sous contrat [under contract with the French state] with the education ministry, whether a foreign school or a French private school outside the state system, sit two additional one-hour written exams in French and maths to confirm they can follow the core curriculum.

There is a free RECT-funded lycée option, but it’s not on the Côte d’Azur. Lycée Bonaparte, in Toulon, is opening a free British international section for 2026-2027. It’s the lycée-level continuation for two Toulon collèges (La Marquisanne and Django Reinhardt) that are opening the same RECT-funded track. Toulon is roughly 1.5 to 2 hours from Nice or Antibes, well outside a realistic daily commute, so it’s not a practical option for most readers here. Still, it’s worth knowing it exists as the only genuinely free lycée-level English section internationale in the wider académie, since Gérard Philipe and Albert Camus don’t yet have a free lycée continuation of their own on the Cannes side.

If CIV doesn’t work geographically or the fees are a barrier, the closest thing to another option is Lycée Fénelon in Grasse. It’s a private school sous contrat (meaning state-subsidised, with fees well below a fully private international school), running its own British international section working towards the BFI, with its first BFI exam session in 2027. It isn’t a public school, so it’s outside the strict scope of this guide. Still, it’s a realistic alternative for a family for whom neither Masséna nor CIV works.

How admission and the entrance exam work for a section internationale

Every English section internationale on this list is selective, and the mechanics are broadly similar across schools even though each runs its own test:

  • Written and oral testing in English is standard at every level, assessing both comprehension and spoken fluency.
  • 6ème and Seconde are the main entry points for collège and lycée respectively. Joining an existing section at another year group is possible at some schools but only when a place opens up and the student can demonstrate they can keep pace with the section’s English content.
  • Some sections also test French, particularly at collège level, since students follow the full French national curriculum alongside the English stream.
  • Testing is run by the Inspection Académique (the regional schools inspectorate) rather than by each school individually, though schools publish their own admissions pages with exact dates and application files each year. Check the specific school’s site directly for the current year’s timeline, since dates move year to year and the académie updates its own sections internationales pages each spring.
  • ASEICA-affiliated schools (Sartoux, Trois Collines, Éganaude, Niki de Saint Phalle, César, and CIV) require registering with ASEICA directly in addition to the school itself, and the ASEICA fee schedule applies on top of admission. RECT-funded schools (Risso, Gérard Philipe, Albert Camus) go through the school and the académie only, with no separate association to register with and no fees.

What it costs compared to private international schools

Private international and bilingual schools on the Côte d’Azur typically run €10,000 to €20,000 a year (see the main schools guide for the full breakdown by school, or browse English-speaking schools and nurseries in the directory). Every public English section internationale in this guide comes in well under that, but “public school” doesn’t mean “free” the way it might elsewhere.

Genuinely free: Collège Antoine Risso in Nice, and Collège Gérard Philipe and Collège Albert Camus once they open for September 2026 in Cannes and Mandelieu-la-Napoule respectively. All three are funded through the RECT equal-opportunity programme rather than ASEICA, with no additional fees for families. There’s no free lycée-level continuation on the Cannes side yet. Families using the free collège track currently face a choice between CIV’s fee-paying lycée section or the free option at Lycée Bonaparte in Toulon, which is too far for most people to consider.

Fee-based, but still far cheaper than private: Sartoux and Trois Collines at primary level, and Éganaude, Niki de Saint Phalle, César, and CIV (collège and lycée) all charge ASEICA tuition and membership fees on top of an otherwise free public-school place. CIV’s collège section runs €1,360 to €2,400 a year for a day student as one concrete reference point; check aseica.org’s fee schedule for the current rates at each school, since they aren’t identical across the four.

Either way, this is meaningfully cheaper than a private international school, and worth knowing before assuming “public” means no cost at all.

Frequently asked questions

Is a section internationale the same as an international school?

No. An international school (like ISN or Mougins British International School) is a separate private institution with its own campus, fees, and often its own curriculum. A section internationale is a selective stream inside an ordinary public French school, following the French national curriculum with an added foreign-language track. See the main schools guide for the private options.

Does Lycée Masséna have an English section internationale?

No. Despite being Nice’s most prominent public lycée, Masséna’s sections internationales are Arabic and Portuguese only. The only public lycée-level English option in the department is CIV’s Lycée International.

Which public school with an English section is closest to where I live?

It depends on the area:

  • Nice: Collège Antoine Risso (free) at collège level; Lycée International at CIV (fee-paying) is the nearest lycée option.
  • Cannes and Mandelieu-la-Napoule: Collège Gérard Philipe and Collège Albert Camus, both free, both opening September 2026.
  • Antibes, Sophia Antipolis, and Biot: Collège de l’Éganaude in Biot (fee-based via ASEICA), which sits between Antibes and Sophia Antipolis. There’s no English section internationale physically inside Antibes itself as of the 2025-2026 school year.
  • Valbonne, Mougins, and Roquefort-les-Pins: Niki de Saint Phalle, César, and CIV at collège level, plus Sartoux and Trois Collines at primary level, all fee-based via ASEICA.

If none of the public options work for your address, compare against the private and bilingual schools nearby: schools around Valbonne and Sophia Antipolis and schools in Nice.

Which public English section is actually free?

Collège Antoine Risso in Nice (open since 2025-2026), and Collège Gérard Philipe in Cannes and Collège Albert Camus in Mandelieu-la-Napoule (both opening 2026-2027). All three are funded through the RECT equal-opportunity programme, which the académie’s own published text describes as offering these sections “sans frais supplémentaires pour les familles” [with no additional fees for families]. Every other English section internationale in this guide charges fees through ASEICA, from primary through lycée.

Do children need to already speak French to get in?

Not necessarily at primary level, but the bar rises quickly. By collège and especially lycée, most sections expect a working level of French alongside strong English, since the rest of the timetable is taught in French. Schools running these sections can advise on individual cases.

How competitive is admission?

Places are limited and demand generally exceeds supply, particularly at the more established schools. There’s no published pass rate, but families are advised to apply as early as the school’s process allows and not treat it as a guaranteed place.

Official sources for international sections in French public schools