A black sixth form pupil has written about widespread racism among pupils and teachers at the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London, The Times has reported.

The pupil, Gabrielle, wrote: “Racism and xenophobia are widespread in all years. Reflecting on my personal experience, I realise that I have always evolved in a school environment where racism persists.

Writing about use of the ‘n-word’ Gabrielle wrote: “Many non-black pupils use this term indiscriminately. Some teachers allow themselves to make racist and incredibly xenophobic remarks towards pupils who are not of Caucasian appearance (eg ‘king of the jungle’, ‘close to monkey).

“There may be a correlation between the teachers’ crude comments and the behaviour of the pupils, among whom there is now a tendency to make derogatory ‘jokes’ about what they call ‘dirty’ Arab and black immigrants. Monkey insults are also very common towards black children and some boys go so far as to proclaim that they ‘don’t like black girls’.

She added: “These revolting remarks have hurt me a lot over the past seven years. I learnt to build a shield for myself and to despise those who derive pleasure from making these kinds of jokes.

“But this is not the case for many.”

The school’s head teacher Catherine Bellus-Ferreira said: “I thought that she was courageous, I decided not to censor her article because I thought, ‘There is an issue here’. Maybe someone hasn’t listened to her well.”

She added: “It is not sufficient or enough to just say, ‘We are against discrimination’ when someone comes and says, ‘I don’t feel like this and I had something which happened in my life at school.

“What we can say is that this girl couldn’t find the good adult to speak to or wasn’t well listened to. I can’t deny it. Tolerance is something that we try to teach every day but sometimes it’s not easy and that has impacted on the environment at school.

“It is important to me that this school struggles against racism. Does it mean that it ‘s perfect? No. I can’t say it doesn’t happen but obviously our safeguarding policy and safeguarding attitude now is much better than it used to be.”