Lycee Francais International Denis Diderot

The French school of Nairobi, opened in 1962 and now a 2-hectare AEFE-network campus in Kilimani serving around 600 to 650 students aged 2 to 18 across more than 50 nationalities.

LFIDD is the standard option for French-speaking diplomatic and NGO families, and increasingly for Kenyan families wanting a genuinely bilingual French and English education. The full French national curriculum runs from maternelle through baccalauréat, and the AEFE network status means transferable schooling for families who move within the French system worldwide.

The school is run by a parents' association as a non-profit, which keeps fees relatively reasonable for an embassy-circuit school. Families talk warmly about the small-school feel, the breadth of nationalities for a Lycée, and the quality of language acquisition for non-French children who join in the early years. The trade-off is real for Anglophone families: serious commitment to the French system is required to get the most out of it, and switching out at upper-secondary is harder than at other Nairobi schools. The natural fit if French education is the goal rather than the fallback.

• The default option in Nairobi for families inside the French education system. Often suggested by other Nairobi expats alongside International School of Kenya, Rosslyn, Braeburn and the Deutsche Schule.
• Subsidised by the French government, fees roughly 25-30% below other Nairobi internationals.
• Around 680 students from 50 countries, ages two to eighteen, with French and OIB tracks.
• Parent-facing review volume online is thin. Most discussion is institutional or comparative rather than experiential.