Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu:

March 20 will mark the 33rd anniversary of the signature of Niamey that laid the foundation of the ‘Agency for Cultural and Technical Co-operation’ reassembling the countries that use the French language on various accounts as lingua franca. French-speaking countries worldwide will be celebrating the Francophone Day.

This linguistic link imparts to the member states the sentiment of belonging to a special community. This sentiment promotes cultural and development exchanges.

But beyond this, the Francophone represents the effort to develop relations on multiple levels between these countries and the governmental and non-governmental organisations that represent this effort. The week of March 15 to 21 is celebrated as Ninth French Speaking and French language week.

The Francophone represents today a ‘commonwealth’ of 500 million people across five continents. The Francophone Summit meets every two years with the conference of heads of state and government countries.

The last one was in 1999 in Moncton, the next one planned in Beirut in 2001 did

not take place because of September 11, 2001 and was held in Beirut in October 2002. The next summit will be at Ouagadougou, Burkina.

The Alliance Française Kathmandu will be celebrating the Francophone week with various programmes such as radio quizzes about the Francophone world on nearly all FM stations, Plume d’Or competition, an international competition for French speakers to test their level of French writing and more. During French classes, games about French culture will be organised by professors to celebrate the French Speaking Week. The best students or the best team will win prizes.

An exhibition of paintings and photographs by various Nepali artists and photographers will be displayed. Sports competition such as badminton, ping-pong and pétanque

(traditional French ball game) will be held from 10 am to 4 pm. Each day, a lunch made of French specialities from different regions of France will be served from 12 noon to 2 pm in the Française ‘s restaurant.

Every morning at 9:30 and in the evening at 6, a French film of a Francophone director

producer will be screened. This is also the 10th anniversary of the Alliance Française de Katmandou. On March 20, the Française will have their house-warming party at its new premises in Tripureswor.