Australians working in France on the new submarine program are using taxpayer dollars to send their children to British boarding schools, as local classes are not taught in English.
The parents are among dozens of naval engineers and architects posted in Cherbourg to work on the $50 billion dollar Defence project launched for French company Naval Group to help Australia design submarines.
The boarding school, St John’s College, costs 53 000 Australian dollars a year.
A senior Australian Defence Force member anonymously said, "The decision to house families in Cherbourg where there is very little English spoken anywhere, let alone taught in the schools, was a bad and expensive one."