Vive les Francofffonies!

From 16 March to 9 October 2006, an extraordinary festival in France will pay tribute to the Francophone world in all its form. A wonderful trip to French-speaking countries.

Francofffonies! For 200 days the Francophone festival offers a range of more than 400 events all over France, with 2,000 artists and celebrities from all backgrounds.

For seven months, poets and writers, entrepreneurs and economists, researchers and scientists, lawyers and geographers, intel-lectuals and historians are going to celebrate the French langauge that they love and share, speak, write, sing, tell stories about and defend.

But that's not all; for these French speakers - 175 million people in the world today - , united by the bond of a common language, come from five continents and 63 member countries of the Organisation internationale de la francophonie (the international organisation of the French-speaking world). They also bring with them their own particular worlds, each with its own history and traditions, ways of life and thought.

A plural, mixed and polyphonic world

They form not a defensive bastion for French language and thought, but are doing the very opposite, building a plural, mixed world which speaks and writes both French and an infinity of mother tongues, including English, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Polish, Bambara and Baoule, Czech, Vietnamese, and many others.

It is this mixture, this polyphony, that nourishes the French-speaking world - so it is quite the opposite of a retrenchment, a rearguard action or move driven by conservatism; still less is it a utopia.

What's more, the three "fs" in the name of the festival should not be mistaken for a sort of acronym, but rather as an illustration of the renewed power of a French speaking world bursting with ideas which, as French President Jacques Chirac stressed last January at the launch of the festival, "works every day, on the five continents, in the plurality of the peoples and cultures of which is it composed (and) invents new forms of modernity".

2006: A symbolic year

It was during the 9th Sommet de la francophonie in Beirut (Lebanon) in 2002 that Jacques Chirac launched the idea of a Francofffonies festival for the year 2006.

It is more than ever about the importance of culture, "the weapon of intelligence against brute force and obstacles"; cultural diversity as a response to the risk of standardisation and the French-speaking world as a place of cohabitation, a guarantor of freedom and progress.

2006 is symbolic for it is also the year in which France is to ratify the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's (UNESCO) Convention on cultural diversity, for which it hoped and prayed and which it strongly supports.

Moreover, a draft law permitting the country to sign the Convention was presented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs on 22 March lsat. symbol if ever there was one, 2006 is also the centenary year of the birth of Leopols Sedar Senghor, Head of State, politician, poet and essayist, who was elected to the Academie francaise in 1983. In short, the man who undoubtedly best embodied 'francophonie'! the Festival will end on 9 October with a tribute to the 100th anniversary of his birth.

High points

Of course, writing and literature will be given perhaps more than their due, for Francofffonies began, with wonderful timing, with the Paris book Fair, the 'Salon du Livre' on 16 March. Until 23 March the public were presented with a stream of overseas authors writing in French from the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Pacific and elsewhere, and on 20 March, as every year since 2001, celebrated la Journee internationale de la francophonie (international French-speaking world day). Throughout France, books and the French langauge have been in pride of place.

Also on the programme are theatre, dance and music, with more than a hundred events, including a remarkable sixth session of the Rencontres choregraphiques de l' Afrique et de l'ocean Indien (dances of Africa and the Indian Ocean) at the Theatre de la cite internationale universitaire in Paris from 22 to 30 April, a special Fete de la musique (Music Day) on 21 June and an open evening at the prestigious Chatelet theatre in Paris on 9 September 2006, with contemporary artists from Quebec who combine art and technology.

On the big screen, there will of course be no shortage of French language surprises at the Cannes festival from 17 to 28 May. And among the many exhibitions, the show at the Quai-Branly museum on African and Asian arts, from 26 June to the end of 2006, is not to be missed (works by Georges Condominas, Romuald Hazoume and Ci Wara).

But what would the arts and the French-speaking world be without reflection...? As you might expect, debates and symposiums punctuate the festival, starting with the "French-speaking world and globalisation" days organised by Dominique Wolton at the French Senate on 27 and 28 April.

An opportunity for the sociologist, a member of the Haut Conseil de la francophone (the organisation's governing body) and the festival's honourary committee, to explain his view of the world as being beyond defensive identities and resolutely opposed to the monopoly of a dominant culture.

"The French-speaking world is also an opportunity for globalisation". For someone who has been analyzing the relationships between culture, communication, society and politics for more than twenty years, linguistic diversity also means a plurality of meetings, more travel and a defence against vi. lence.

It also means economic diversity, for in this area too "there is no one way of doing business".

Courtesy: LABEL France