Part of the Ministry of Education, the CIEP promotes the French language, international cooperation through education and international mobility through exchange programs. 

“By adopting the name France Éducation international we will have more visibility”

A spokesperson for FEI said president Emmanuel Macron’s plans to promote the French language around the world is behind the rebrand. 

“FEI’s ambition is to… not only by mobilise its own expertise but pool the expertise of the ministry’s other operators to support France’s new ambition on the international scene,” they said. 

“The name change was also justified by a lack of visibility of the agency whose name, an international centre for pedagogical studies, did not say what we were doing, what we were. 

“By adopting the name France Éducation international we will have more visibility,” they added.

The CIEP had 250 staff as well as a network of over 1000 experts and partners. The FEI is now set to expand this network.  

The department will not make changes to the CIEP’s language certifications, the DELF-DALF, the TCF and Ev@lang. It will, however, develop the CIEP’s  Language Assistant Program, which focuses on student mobility. 

In 2018 Macron made a speech at the Institut de France setting out his plans to “make French a major language of exchange, communication” around the world. 

He spoke about the importance of multilingualism, saying: “The temptation to make English the working language must be replaced by efforts to encourage multilingualism and intercultural exchanges, without which companies themselves will be overwhelmed by linguistic and hence cultural uniformity.”