diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 166c52e9..35df8a1f 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -25,6 +25,9 @@ leon.json
 bridges/python/src/Pipfile.lock
 tcp_server/src/Pipfile.lock
 tcp_server/src/lib/tts/models/*.pth
+tcp_server/src/lib/tts/models/**/*.bin
+tcp_server/src/lib/tts/models/**/*.json
+tcp_server/src/lib/tts/models/**/*.txt
 tcp_server/src/lib/asr/models/**/*.bin
 !tcp_server/**/.gitkeep
 !bridges/python/**/.gitkeep
diff --git a/scripts/setup/setup-python-dev-env.js b/scripts/setup/setup-python-dev-env.js
index 946c20c8..a1347b48 100644
--- a/scripts/setup/setup-python-dev-env.js
+++ b/scripts/setup/setup-python-dev-env.js
@@ -17,9 +17,9 @@ import {
   PYTHON_TCP_SERVER_ASR_MODEL_GPU_HF_PREFIX_DOWNLOAD_URL,
   PYTHON_TCP_SERVER_SRC_ASR_MODEL_PATH_FOR_GPU,
   PYTHON_TCP_SERVER_SRC_ASR_MODEL_PATH_FOR_CPU,
-  PYTHON_TCP_SERVER_SRC_TTS_BERT_FRENCH_DIR_PATH,
+  // PYTHON_TCP_SERVER_SRC_TTS_BERT_FRENCH_DIR_PATH,
   PYTHON_TCP_SERVER_SRC_TTS_BERT_BASE_DIR_PATH,
-  PYTHON_TCP_SERVER_TTS_BERT_FRENCH_MODEL_HF_PREFIX_DOWNLOAD_URL,
+  // PYTHON_TCP_SERVER_TTS_BERT_FRENCH_MODEL_HF_PREFIX_DOWNLOAD_URL,
   PYTHON_TCP_SERVER_TTS_BERT_BASE_MODEL_HF_PREFIX_DOWNLOAD_URL
 } from '@/constants'
 import { CPUArchitectures, OSTypes } from '@/types'
@@ -67,12 +67,12 @@ const ASR_CPU_MODEL_FILES = [
   'tokenizer.json',
   'vocabulary.txt'
 ]
-const TTS_BERT_FRENCH_MODEL_FILES = [
-  'pytorch_model.bin',
+/*const TTS_BERT_FRENCH_MODEL_FILES = [
+  'pytorch_model.bin', // Not needed? Compare with HF auto download in ~/.cache/huggingface/hub...
   'config.json',
   'vocab.txt',
   'tokenizer_config.json'
-]
+]*/
 const TTS_BERT_BASE_MODEL_FILES = [
   'pytorch_model.bin',
   'config.json',
@@ -421,7 +421,7 @@ SPACY_MODELS.set('fr', {
         process.exit(1)
       }
     }
-    const installTTSBERTFrenchModel = async () => {
+    /*const installTTSBERTFrenchModel = async () => {
       try {
         LogHelper.info('Installing TTS BERT French model...')
 
@@ -448,7 +448,7 @@ SPACY_MODELS.set('fr', {
         LogHelper.error(`Failed to install TTS BERT French model: ${e}`)
         process.exit(1)
       }
-    }
+    }*/
     const installTTSBERTBaseModel = async () => {
       try {
         LogHelper.info('Installing TTS BERT base model...')
@@ -520,7 +520,8 @@ SPACY_MODELS.set('fr', {
       )
     }
 
-    LogHelper.info(
+    // TODO: later when multiple languages are supported
+    /*LogHelper.info(
       'Checking whether TTS BERT French language model files are downloaded...'
     )
     const areTTSBERTFrenchFilesDownloaded = fs.existsSync(
@@ -536,7 +537,7 @@ SPACY_MODELS.set('fr', {
       LogHelper.success(
         'TTS BERT French language model files are already downloaded'
       )
-    }
+    }*/
 
     LogHelper.info('Checking whether the TTS model is installed...')
     const isTTSModelInstalled = fs.existsSync(
diff --git a/tcp_server/src/lib/constants.py b/tcp_server/src/lib/constants.py
index 7f07de04..5b6cd05f 100644
--- a/tcp_server/src/lib/constants.py
+++ b/tcp_server/src/lib/constants.py
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@ TTS_MODEL_NAME = f'EN-Leon-{TTS_MODEL_VERSION}-G_{TTS_MODEL_ITERATION}'
 TTS_MODEL_FILE_NAME = f'{TTS_MODEL_NAME}.pth'
 TTS_LIB_PATH = os.path.join(LIB_PATH, 'tts')
 TTS_MODEL_FOLDER_PATH = os.path.join(TTS_LIB_PATH, 'models')
+TTS_BERT_FRENCH_MODEL_DIR_PATH = os.path.join(TTS_MODEL_FOLDER_PATH, 'bert-case-french-europeana-cased')
+TTS_BERT_BASE_MODEL_DIR_PATH = os.path.join(TTS_MODEL_FOLDER_PATH, 'bert-base-uncased')
 TTS_MODEL_CONFIG_PATH = os.path.join(TTS_MODEL_FOLDER_PATH, 'config.json')
 TTS_MODEL_PATH = os.path.join(TTS_MODEL_FOLDER_PATH, TTS_MODEL_FILE_NAME)
 IS_TTS_ENABLED = os.environ.get('LEON_TTS', 'true') == 'true'
diff --git a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/__init__.py b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/__init__.py
index 0c0f5d5b..73fc181f 100644
--- a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/__init__.py
+++ b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/__init__.py
@@ -22,9 +22,8 @@ def cleaned_text_to_sequence(cleaned_text, tones, language, symbol_to_id=None):
 
 def get_bert(norm_text, word2ph, language, device):
     from .english_bert import get_bert_feature as en_bert
-    from .french_bert import get_bert_feature as fr_bert
+    # from .french_bert import get_bert_feature as fr_bert
 
-    lang_bert_func_map = {"EN": en_bert,
-                          'FR': fr_bert}
+    lang_bert_func_map = {"EN": en_bert}
     bert = lang_bert_func_map[language](norm_text, word2ph, device)
     return bert
diff --git a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/cleaner.py b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/cleaner.py
index 0f432ad7..df3b06ec 100644
--- a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/cleaner.py
+++ b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/cleaner.py
@@ -1,9 +1,10 @@
-from . import english, french
+from . import english
 from . import cleaned_text_to_sequence
 import copy
 
-language_module_map = {"EN": english,
-                    'FR': french}
+# language_module_map = {"EN": english,
+#                     'FR': french}
+language_module_map = {"EN": english}
 
 
 def clean_text(text, language):
diff --git a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/english.py b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/english.py
index cdecb0cf..0759f686 100644
--- a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/english.py
+++ b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/english.py
@@ -4,6 +4,9 @@ import re
 from g2p_en import G2p
 from transformers import AutoTokenizer
 
+
+from lib.constants import TTS_BERT_BASE_MODEL_DIR_PATH
+
 from . import symbols
 
 from .english_utils.abbreviations import expand_abbreviations
@@ -192,8 +195,12 @@ def text_normalize(text):
     text = expand_abbreviations(text)
     return text
 
-model_id = 'bert-base-uncased'
-tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(model_id)
+load_model_params = {
+    "pretrained_model_name_or_path": TTS_BERT_BASE_MODEL_DIR_PATH,
+    "local_files_only": True
+}
+tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(**load_model_params)
+
 def g2p_old(text):
     tokenized = tokenizer.tokenize(text)
     # import pdb; pdb.set_trace()
diff --git a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/english_bert.py b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/english_bert.py
index 17d2f0a8..7d155ecb 100644
--- a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/english_bert.py
+++ b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/english_bert.py
@@ -2,9 +2,13 @@ import torch
 from transformers import AutoTokenizer, AutoModelForMaskedLM
 import sys
 
+from lib.constants import TTS_BERT_BASE_MODEL_DIR_PATH
 
-model_id = 'bert-base-uncased'
-tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(model_id)
+load_model_params = {
+    "pretrained_model_name_or_path": TTS_BERT_BASE_MODEL_DIR_PATH,
+    "local_files_only": True
+}
+tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(**load_model_params)
 model = None
 
 def get_bert_feature(text, word2ph, device=None):
@@ -18,7 +22,7 @@ def get_bert_feature(text, word2ph, device=None):
     if not device:
         device = "cuda"
     if model is None:
-        model = AutoModelForMaskedLM.from_pretrained(model_id).to(
+        model = AutoModelForMaskedLM.from_pretrained(**load_model_params).to(
             device
         )
     with torch.no_grad():
diff --git a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/french.py b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/french.py
index 4246bc37..3160cff7 100644
--- a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/french.py
+++ b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/french.py
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 from transformers import AutoTokenizer
 
+from lib.constants import TTS_BERT_FRENCH_MODEL_DIR_PATH
+
 from .fr_phonemizer import cleaner as fr_cleaner
 from .fr_phonemizer import fr_to_ipa
 
@@ -16,8 +18,11 @@ def text_normalize(text):
     text = fr_cleaner.french_cleaners(text)
     return text
 
-model_id = 'dbmdz/bert-base-french-europeana-cased'
-tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(model_id)
+load_model_params = {
+    "pretrained_model_name_or_path": 'dbmdz/bert-base-french-europeana-cased',
+    "local_files_only": True
+}
+tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(**load_model_params)
 
 def g2p(text, pad_start_end=True, tokenized=None):
     if tokenized is None:
diff --git a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/french_bert.py b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/french_bert.py
index f30d12dc..bd358026 100644
--- a/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/french_bert.py
+++ b/tcp_server/src/lib/tts/text/french_bert.py
@@ -2,8 +2,13 @@ import torch
 from transformers import AutoTokenizer, AutoModelForMaskedLM
 import sys
 
-model_id = 'dbmdz/bert-base-french-europeana-cased'
-tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(model_id)
+from lib.constants import TTS_BERT_FRENCH_MODEL_DIR_PATH
+
+load_model_params = {
+    "pretrained_model_name_or_path": TTS_BERT_FRENCH_MODEL_DIR_PATH,
+    "local_files_only": True
+}
+tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(**load_model_params)
 model = None
 
 def get_bert_feature(text, word2ph, device=None):
@@ -17,7 +22,7 @@ def get_bert_feature(text, word2ph, device=None):
     if not device:
         device = "cuda"
     if model is None:
-        model = AutoModelForMaskedLM.from_pretrained(model_id).to(
+        model = AutoModelForMaskedLM.from_pretrained(**load_model_params).to(
             device
         )
     with torch.no_grad():