A language “foundation of our relationship with the world”. The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron inaugurates this Monday in Villers-Cotterêts (Aisne) his major cultural project, the International City of the French Language, fueled by a desire to reconquest in the face of the advances of the National Rally.
“All those throughout the world who work, create, think, write, play and sing in French must feel at home in Villers-Cotterêts,” underlines the Elysée. The city’s castle, a Renaissance jewel where François I signed, in 1539, the ordinance imposing the use of French in the drafting of legal texts, has been completely renovated to become a “castle of the Francophonie”.
“First project dedicated to the French language in the world”, the place “will be the beating heart of the Francophonie”, assures AFP the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak, who will be present alongside the president for the inauguration. “This project brings together the strength of the French language and the recognition of its diversity,” she adds.
Villers-Cotterêts, an unconsidered choice
In this town of 10,000 inhabitants, 80 km from Paris, candidate Macron discovered a castle in an advanced state of disrepair in 2017. Once elected, he entrusted its renovation to the Center of National Monuments (CMN). In addition to the history of the place, this choice is also dictated by “the economic and social difficulties of the territory”, specifies the Elysée. Marked by unemployment and deindustrialization, Villers-Cotterêts has for several years turned towards the far-right vote. The town hall has been led since 2014 by National Rally elected official Franck Briffaut and, in Aisne, Marine Le Pen came well ahead in the two rounds of the last presidential election.
With this place, Emmanuel Macron wants to “show that the recovery of the territory does not involve withdrawal, but much more and with much more chance of success, through openness”, underlines those around him. If “the French language is the nation’s primary asset”, it is also “the founder of what we are intellectually and of our relationship to the world”, adds the Elysée.
It is in Villers-Cotterêts that the Francophonie summit will take place in 2024, to which the leaders of 88 states will be invited. Initially scheduled for October 19, the inauguration was postponed due to the funeral that day of French teacher Dominique Bernard, murdered in Arras (Pas-de-Calais) by a young jihadist.