Photographers: Amelie Vidal and Philippe Laupa.
By Nicole Pierre.
On the occasion of Francophone Month which is celebrated every year in March, the Embassies of Belgium (Délégation Wallonie Bruxelles), Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Cyprus, France, Greece, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Morocco, Romania, Senegal, Switzerland and Tunisia gathered, in the presence of more than 300 attendees, at the Grote Kerk Den Haag on Wednesday March 11for a panel discussion about the importance of the Francophonie in the economic and commercial development between countries, and more specifically, between Europe and Africa.
For a photo-album of the event, please click here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/121611753@N07/sets/72157650976417109/
The conference was organized by the Francophone embassies in The Hague, as well as the Institut Français and Alliance française de La Haye and was followed by a “Francophone buffet and cocktail” which was offered thanks to the collaboration with the CCI – Franco Dutch Chamber of Commerce and TV5 Monde, the international Francophone channel. The guest speakers for the event, included a representative of the OIF office in Paris, Mr Hervé Cronel, Dutch business managers, Michael Hailu (Ethopia) and Youssouf Camara – Director and Program Coordinator of the Dutch based CTA Company respectively, Mylena Pierremont, founder of Amsterdam’s Ming Pai Marketing Agency, Fanny Marie Brisdet a Franco-Dutch lawyer and Jean-Pierre Perroud, an intercultural consultant. The debate was moderated by Ariejan Korteweg, a political journalist at the Volkskrant and former journalist in Paris.
Quite impressively, the panelists, and especially the attendees, highlighted the positive aspects and benefits of using the French language for business purposes, in Africa, but also in Japan and Latin America, reinforcing the fact that French is spoken on all 5 continents and that the Francophonie movement promotes the positive aspects of a plurilinguistic and multicultural world. In fact, according to Mr. Cronel “Francophonie means the disconnection of the French language from France, as the French language does not belong to France alone”
