Centenary of the creation of the modern Romanian state

and the Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2019

After an exemplary diplomatic journey in many places and on various and complex themes, in the light of last summer you take the responsibility to promote France in Romania, how do you apprehend this mission? How did your course serve you? What assessment can you draw after this first year?

I took in June 2017 the helm of the French Embassy in Romania with enthusiasm. This appointment, which is the fourteenth post in my diplomatic career, provides me with the opportunity to make use of my previous experience particularly in the cultural, defence and security fields. The French Embassy in Bucarest is an embassy with a very broad range of missions because the French-Romanian relation is long-standing, deep and ambitious. The French economic presence is strong, the cultural and linguistic proximity is an asset, and the French community is regularly growing. Romania is a deeply pro-European country and we wish that it will be among the countries that want to strengthen Europe in order to make it stronger, more united and democratic as proposed by the French President Emmanuel Macron.

My first year in Romania enabled me to build ties with political authorities, public administrations, cultural institutions, business actors, civil society, artists and in particular musicians. It also enabled me to discover the country, having made about 30 trips to meet local politicians, firms and French communities, and spoken to the other Romania, the one of the inside.

It is on the basis of these contacts that I was able to define a roadmap to develop the French-Romanian relation in every aspect. There are some challenges but the energy and the political will are there.

We are preparing the France-Romania Season that will be launched on the 27th of November in Paris with the visit of the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and will continue during 7 months, in France and then in Romania, comprising more than a hundred of events that will make the French-Romanian relation more visible and that will create new opportunities for both countries. This Season will coincide with the Romanian presidency of the European Union Council.

We are about to experience an emotional moment in the history of Romania and of the relations between our countries, particularly in the year of the Centenary of the creation of modern Romania in 1918.

The cultural and political relations between France and Romania go back to the 19th century, remember in the Latin Quarter of “The Romanian Students Society of Paris” founded in 1846. What is today the climate of our political and cultural relations? A coming cross year?

Romania and France belong to a common cultural space and live in an artistic communion, as several Romanian figures of arts and science in the 19th and in the first half of the 20th centuries lived in France and patronized the Parisian cultural life of the moment: George Enescu, Anne Elisabeth Brancovan, countess of Noailles, Constantin Brancusi, Eugène Ionesco, Emil Cioran benefited from French influences and the other way around there was a strong Romanian footprint in France, a kind of “crossed fertilization”.

The cultural cooperation between Romania and France reflects this common heritage. In this framework, Romania and France will celebrate between the 1st of December 2018 and the 14th of July 2019 a Season that will reinforce, by holding numerous events in both countries, the economic, scientific, cultural and societal ties between us, and will demonstrate the dynamics and the imagination of the creators in both countries. This Season, based on a common heritage and a future to build together, will put in place a dialogue between our two nations focusing on the heritage as well as on the contemporaneity.

As soon as Romania joined the European Union in 2007, trade relations between France and Romania grew, where are we today?

Indeed, the accession of Romania to the European Union in 2007 has led to a strong growth in the volume of our exchanges, but I would like to remind that our trade relation was already strong before 2007, France and Romania being historical partners. For example, the CCIFER (ndlr: French-Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry) which has currently nearly 500 members representing almost 15% of the GDP and 125 000 direct jobs, celebrates this year its 22nd anniversary.

This being said, our bilateral trade has increased by 71% in a decade reaching nearly 8 bn€ in 2017. France is thus the 5th supplier of Romania and its third client. We mainly export industrial and agricultural machineries, transport materials and chemicals in Romania, whereas our imports from Romania consist essentially of transport materials and capital goods.

The nature of these exchanges can be partly explained by the density of the French economic presence on the whole Romanian territory. Among the 2 300 French owned firms, there are SME’s, but there are also subsidiaries of 36 out of the 40 biggest French listed companies. Many of them are leaders in their fields in Romania.

French firms knew how to adapt to Romania’s spectacular development since 2007 and answered to the population’s will by improving the quality of their products and by creating more added value on the Romanian territory, particularly in the agri-food industry. Various opportunities are still to be seized in the next years; we work on it every day.

What is the role of the French Embassy in Romania in increasing our economic and cultural relations?

The French Embassy and its different departments build the French-Romanian political relations with institutional counterparts and interact with the private sector to promote our economic and cultural presence in Romania. This works implies formal or informal contacts and exchanges, organising official visits and events.

The Embassy also manages the “French team” that encompasses several entities, such as Business France and Campus France, and backs the French foreign trade advisers, the French-Romanian Chamber of commerce, industry and agriculture, the French speaking trade clubs and the French institutes in province. As you see, it is a team work.

France is an active member of the OIF in the same way as Romania, how does the French language serve our relations?

Romania is a big country of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie and I am glad that a quarter of the Romanian population speaks our language.

French links us and is the sign that we belong to a common cultural family: the Latin world, the democratic values. The OIF gathers countries from the 5 continents and promotes our language, our culture and the principles we are attached to. But French is also a vector of economic development and of employment, it offers opportunities.

I am however sorry that French no longer holds such a high position as before in the education system in Romania and among the youth. Today, the young speak less French than their parents and that is a shame because multilingualism is a source of opportunities. The Season will have the ambition to reinforce the place of the French language in Romania.

What are the major projects and objectives of your Embassy in the years to come?

I am actively working to build a positive agenda with Romania. In three fields:

• First, political dialogue and European cooperation. Romania and France have common political interests and the ambition to reinforce together the European Union. In that sense, the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU will be an important responsibility for Bucarest, and France will support Romania to make that presidency a success;
• Secondly, cooperation and exchange in the economic sphere and the defence sector: in this field there is room for improvement and our investors and firms are interested in Romania;
• Cooperation in the fields of education, universities, science and the promotion of Francophonie. We have to modernize and develop our cooperation and promote together the use of French particularly in the economic sector.

Finally, on the eve of major European elections, what message do you wish to send to Romania, to Romanians and to French in Romania?

I will first tell them to vote in large numbers in the elections because the electoral turnout to these elections will be a strong sign in favour of a stronger Europe, closer to its citizens.

I will then tell them to be interested in the European issues and to contribute to define the future of Europe by sharing their expectations about the EU. A consultation has been put online in that purpose by the European Commission and everyone is invited to give his or her opinion.

Finally, I will tell them that given the unprecedented challenges faced by the European Union we need to reconstruct the European project and consolidate this structure in order to preserve the peace and prosperity that it has offered to us throughout the last 70 years.