France is hosting the 19th Francophonie Summit on October 4 and 5, a first in 33 years.
Around fifty countries will be represented, for festivities and workshops which will take place partly at the Château de Villers-Cotterêts (Aisne) and partly in Paris.
Paris, capital of the Francophonie. This Friday, October 4 and Saturday, October 5, France is hosting the 19th Francophonie Summit, a first in 33 years for the country where the International Organization of the Francophonie (OIF) is based. Of the 88 member states and governments of the OIF, around fifty should participate in this summit and be represented, announced François Vandeville, secretary general of the Francophonie summit during a press conference.
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City of the French language: the inhabitants of Villers-Cotterêts between hope and concern
This Friday, President Emmanuel Macron will welcome his guests to the Château de Villers-Cotterêts, in the Aisne department, where he inaugurated the Cité internationale de la langue française last year. On October 5, work will continue in Paris, at the Grand Palais.
If the two-day summit will have the theme “Create, innovate and undertake in French”, it will also be an opportunity for leaders meeting behind closed doors to discuss burning topics such as the crisis in the Middle East. (new window)and armed conflicts in Africa. Thus, a Lebanese delegation is expected in Paris where it must meet the leaders of the organization, while their country has been under the fire of intense bombings for a week, against the backdrop of military escalation between Israel on the one hand, Iran and the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah on the other hand.
The modest influence of the OIF
The leaders of Senegal, Benin, Chad, Central Africa, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have also confirmed their presence. Three Sahelian countries, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, with which France has had stormy relations since experiencing coups in recent years, were not invited, unlike Guinea, where a junta has been in power for three years after a putsch, and whose suspension from the OIF was lifted at the end of September.
Faced with the criticisms which regularly target the institution, sometimes described as“invisible”the secretary general of the OIF Louise Mushikiwabo recognized in an interview with AFP the influence “modest” of the organization, “who (is not able to) solve the world’s complicated crises, but can get things done”. The OIF, whose mission is to “promote the French language”, “peace, democracy and human rights”, “support education” et “develop economic cooperation”estimates the number of French speakers at 321 million on five continents, making it the 5th most spoken language in the world.
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