Monday, 21 September 2020, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg: Hamburg shall be host to a Franco-German Gymnasium: the latter shall be the only Franco-German Gymnasium (grammar school) in Germany outside the border region with France.
There are now four locations in total: Freiburg, Saarbrücken, Hamburg and Buc (Paris metropolitan region). At the foundation ceremony, Hamburg’s First Mayor Dr. Peter Tschentscher and the Ambassador of the French Republic to Germany, Anne-Marie Descôtes, broke ground for the new building on the Struensee campus.
School Senator Ties Rabe said as per statement below -in its original German version: “The new Franco-German Gymnasium in Hamburg is a special opportunity for the whole of Hamburg and a promising model for the future, modelled on other tried and tested, well-functioning Gymnasiums in Germany and France.
The large, conveniently located school grounds of the Struensee Gymnasium and the spacious new building for both schools provide good conditions for continuing the good cooperation with the Lycée Français at the new location as a ‘German-French Gymnasium’. At the same time, this new foundation will further enhance the value of the Struensee campus as a school location”.
From 2015 to the end of 2018, the then First Mayors Olaf Scholz (today Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Finance of Germany) and subsequently Dr. Peter Tschentscher held the mandate of the “Plenipotentiary of the Federal Republic of Germany for Cultural Affairs within the framework of the Treaty on Franco-German Cooperation“. During this time, talks were held with the French government on the foundation of a Franco-German grammar school in Hamburg, which are now coming to a successful conclusion.
France has been Hamburg’s most important foreign trade partner for decades; the volume of trade between Hamburg and France is worth around Around 1,500 Hamburg companies have business contacts with France; more than 5,400 French people live in Hamburg.
Since 1958 Hamburg and Marseille have been closely linked by a town twinning arrangement.
For further information:
Senate of Hamburg: https://www.hamburg.de/pressearchiv-fhh/14335054/2020-09-21-pr-gruendung-deutsch-franzoesisches-gymnasium/
Picture by Hamburger Senatpressestelle.
