French

A few thousand French people of French origin live in Algeria, sixty years after nearly all of the million European settlers left at independence in 1962. Most are executives and engineers of French firms, teachers, diplomats and their families in Algiers and Oran, together with French women and men married to Algerians and a few hundred elderly settlers who never left. Family life turns on the Lycée international Alexandre-Dumas in Algiers, oversubscribed sixty applicants to a place, and the Instituts français, while the small Catholic Church, whose priests and religious sisters are largely French, still honours the nineteen martyrs of the 1990s beatified in Oran in 2018, among them the seven monks of Tibhirine. The far larger number of French citizens in Algeria are Franco-Algerians, Algerians by origin.

Between 4,000 and 7,000 French people live in Egypt, out of some 7,600 French citizens registered with the consulate in Cairo at the end of 2025, about half of whom are Egyptians who also hold French nationality. The French tie to Egypt is old: Napoleon's expedition of 1798 founded modern Egyptology, a French engineer built the Suez Canal, and French was the language of Egypt's cosmopolitan elite until the 1950s. Today's residents are teachers, diplomats, archaeologists, business staff, retirees and dive instructors, living mostly in Cairo's Maadi and Zamalek, with smaller groups in Alexandria, Luxor and on the Red Sea coast. The Lycée français du Caire and the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, founded in 1880, anchor community life, while dozens of French-language schools teach mainly Egyptian children. Most French residents are secular or Catholic in name.

The French in Kuwait are a small expatriate community of about a thousand people: engineers and managers with French and international companies, diplomats, teachers and their families. Most stay a few years on contract. Their main institution is the Lycée Français de Koweït, a French-curriculum school founded in 1989 whose 1,200 to 1,300 pupils are mostly the children of other expatriates and of Kuwaitis, with French nationals only about one in eight; in 2015 Kuwaiti censors covered the nudes in Delacroix's 'Liberty Leading the People' in its textbooks. Most are nominally Catholic or secular, living in a society where public life is shaped by Islam.

The French in Lebanon are a small expatriate community of perhaps two to four thousand within a much larger group of about 23,000 French citizens, most of whom are Lebanese with French passports. They are teachers, diplomats, aid and development workers, journalists, business people and the French husbands and wives of Lebanese, living mostly in Christian east Beirut and the hills of Mount Lebanon. Their country left a deep mark: France ruled Lebanon under a League of Nations mandate from 1920 to 1943, General Gouraud proclaimed Greater Lebanon from the steps of the Résidence des Pins, now the French ambassador's home, and Lebanon has the largest French-curriculum school network in the world. In October 2024 about 3,000 French citizens left as war spread, and many returned after the ceasefire.

Between 1,200 and 1,800 French people live in Mauritania, out of about 1,800 French citizens registered with the embassy in Nouakchott, a third of whom are Mauritanians who also hold French nationality. France ruled Mauritania from the early 1900s until 1960, governing it from Saint-Louis in Senegal, and French remains the language of business, much of the press and higher education. Today's residents are diplomats, teachers, aid and development staff, engineers in mining, energy and construction, and the families who fill the Lycée français Théodore Monod, which teaches more than 1,300 children in Nouakchott. Each winter a weekly charter flight from Paris brings French walkers to the dunes and oases around Atar. Most of the French are Catholic in name or secular, and the cathedral in Nouakchott is one of the few places in the country where Christians may worship openly.

About 20,000 French citizens live in Morocco, its largest European community and its third-largest foreign one after the Senegalese and Ivorians. Most of the settlers of the French protectorate (1912-1956) left after independence; today's French are managers and engineers of French firms in Casablanca and Tangier, teachers in one of the largest French school networks abroad, aid and embassy staff in Rabat, and retirees and riad owners in Marrakech, Agadir and Essaouira. Their numbers have held steady for a decade while other foreigners have multiplied. Most are secular in practice, and a Catholic minority fills parishes such as Casablanca's Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes beside African students and migrants.

About 6,000 French citizens live in Qatar, up from a few hundred in the early 2000s: engineers in gas and construction, bankers, hotel and luxury managers, academics at HEC Paris in Education City, museum specialists and defence staff. French schooling is the community's anchor, with two French lycées in Doha teaching more than 4,000 pupils, many of them Qatari and francophone Arab children alongside French families. Many French residents are dual nationals of North African or Lebanese origin, so the community spans Catholic heritage, firm secularism and Islam. Qatar's ownership of Paris Saint-Germain and its museum partnerships with Paris institutions tie the two countries closely.

Between 6,500 and 10,000 French citizens live in Saudi Arabia, a community that has grown through the 2020s with defence, energy, transport and tourism contracts. Most live in Riyadh and Jeddah, with smaller groups in Al-Khobar on the Gulf coast and in AlUla, where a French agency created under a 2018 agreement helps develop the Nabataean tombs of Hegra and the old mud-brick town. Family life revolves around three French international schools and the Alliance Française centres, which also teach French to thousands of Saudis. Most French residents are secular or Catholic in name; the Catholic bishop whose vicariate covers Saudi Arabia from Bahrain is himself French, but Mass can only be celebrated in private.

Several thousand French citizens without Tunisian nationality live in Tunisia, the largest European community and second only to Algerians among foreign residents. They are the remnant of a protectorate-era population of about 180,000 that left in waves after independence in 1956, the Bizerte crisis of 1961 and the nationalisation of colonial farmland in 1964, and today are mostly retirees, business people, teachers, diplomats and the French spouses of Tunisians. Three in four live in Greater Tunis, especially the seaside suburbs of La Marsa and Carthage, with growing groups of retirees in Hammamet, Sousse and on Djerba. French schools teach close to 20,000 pupils, and the Catholic archdiocese of Tunis, led by a French archbishop, keeps the colonial-era Cathedral of Saint Vincent de Paul on the capital's main avenue. Most are Catholic by background but secular in practice.

About 40,000 French citizens live in the Emirates, one of the fastest-growing French communities in the world, up by an eighth in 2025 alone. Most are engineers, bankers, teachers, luxury and hotel managers and entrepreneurs in Dubai's villa suburbs and on Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island, alongside a younger wave of founders and influencers drawn by tax-free income. France keeps its only permanent Gulf base in Abu Dhabi, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi and Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi make the capital a showcase of French culture. Family life revolves around four large French lycées whose classrooms mix French children with Lebanese, Maghrebi and Emirati pupils. Most French residents are Catholic in name only or secular, while a sizeable minority of North African descent is Muslim.