Francophonie festival from March 13 in city

Staff Reporter A week-long programme titled 'La Francophonie 2011 Bangladesh', an annual regular event meant to celebrate diversity of the French language will begin from March 13 in the city amidst huge festivity and enthusiasm. From March 13 to 20 the Alliance Francaise, the High Commission of Canada and the Embassies of Egypt, France, Morocco and Switzerland are organising La Francophonie festival. This year, the participating countries will promote French language as well as the cultures of their countries through exhibiting modern cinema of the French speaking countries, all along the week. The other programmes include-Lalon concert and an exhibition titled "Tell me 10 words". The International Organisation of Francophonie, created more than 40 years ago, gathers 75 countries sharing French language as an important part of their identity. This organisation intends to promote French language as well as cultural diversity. To disclose the matter, a joint press conference was held at the Alliance Francaise at the La Verandah of the AFD in the city Dhanmondi area yesterday. Canadian High Commissioner Robert Mc Dougall, Deputy Chief of the Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt Ahmad Al Shourbagy, Ambassador of France Charley Causeret, Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco Driss Hachaq and Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of Switzerland Gabriele Derighetti spoke on the occasion. Addressing the joint press conference on this occasion French Ambassador Charley Causeret reminded that 220 million people have French as a mother tongue in five continents across the world. "One of the main characteristic of Francophonie is an ideal of solidarity shared by all its members (one third of the countries of the United Nations). Francophone solidarity is demonstrated through many different features: democracy and human rights, education, gender equality, sustainable development or digital culture. When Haïti was hit by one of the worst natural disasters in history last year, the francophone response was immediate: Recently the Secretary General of Francophonie and former president of Senegal M Abdou Diouf expressed the support and solidarity of the IOF towards the Tunisian and Egyptian people and called for a democratic transition complying with the will of the populations," said the French ambassador. Regarding the increased interest in learning French language in Bangladesh, Charley Causeret also observed, "In Bangladesh, the French language arouses an increasing interest. Our tongue has been taught for more than 50 years at Alliance Francaise de Dhaka and more than 45 years at Alliance Francaise de Chittagong. Their classrooms have never been so full than today, and the number of students both in their premises and in their partner universities continues to increase, with nearly 6.000 registrations in 2010." Gabriele Derighetti, Deputy Head of Mission of Switzerland embassy said, "Francophonie" stands for more than that: it also stands for an extraordinary mix of different cultures, languages and countries of all continents, which, far from focusing only on the French language, wants to promote diversity and core values such as democracy and human rights. This is particularly appealing to Switzerland, a country built on multiculturalism and plurilinguism, and where French, enjoying the status of an official language, is the mother tongue of more than 20 per cent of the population and widely spoken around the country. French is both a working language and an official language of the United Nations, the European Union, UNESCO, and NATO, the International Olympic Committee, the International Red Cross and international courts. French is the language of the three cities where the EU institutions are headquartered: Strasbourg, Brussels and Luxembourg.

19 May, 2013 Sunday

Francophonie festival from March 13 in city