Hey there,

Thought I'd throw down my two centimes...

I've only briefly visited Montpellier (and honestly, spent most of my time on the beach, which I'm a fan of). Unfortunately, this means that my contact with the locals was low... I have a friend or two who did French-studying over in Montpellier and they recommended it very highly (as they both came over with very little French knowledge and somehow managed to leave after 6 months with a B2/C1 level on the TCF --> this is definitely impressive).

I'm currently studying in Lyon, and have thus spent all of my time with the exchange students. What I will say about the city, is that its nothing like Paris in the sense of people speaking to you in English. From day 1, I had to use whatever scraps of French I knew to converse with locals (whether they know English or not, they never let on)...

In terms of learning, that's definitely a good thing. So, my biased opinion is Lyon. [Knowing nothing about these French schools specifically]