REPLAY: Macron addresses leaders at opening of Francophone summit
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00:00We are expecting Emmanuel Macron to start speaking very shortly, there he is, and we're
00:04going to take a listen to him now.
00:07Your Majesties, Chiefs of Church, Heads of State, Heads of Governments, Madam Secretary
00:18General, dear de Luise, dear Ministers, Heads of Delegation, Members of Parliament, Ambassadors,
00:29Prefects, Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been tasked to invite you here to welcome
00:43you to this event, which is a great honour for me.
00:47And as you've understood this, no one would have anticipated that there would be so much
00:53sunshine here at Villers-Cotillers.
00:58Ladies and Gentlemen, you are at home here, in a place that is much greater than us, where
01:07someone much greater than us reigns, a great lady who is over a thousand years old, our
01:15language.
01:17Welcome here, welcome to all speakers of French who have joined us here from all five continents.
01:25The Chateau of Villers-Cotillers, as you've just heard, is where in August 1539 a royal
01:32decree marked the first official step of the expansion of our language.
01:39And it is here that François I, Francis I of France, started building the unity of France
01:46through its language.
01:49It's an instrument of unification, of hope for our country.
01:56And if you'd come here just five years ago, you would have only seen a chateau that was
02:04already turning to ruin.
02:06You'd see closed, barricaded doors, empty rooms.
02:10But today it has become an open space, a living space, a place for exhibiting and teaching
02:18our language.
02:19And I'd like to congratulate all those who worked for many years in order to rebuild,
02:24restore, and also to think about the nature of this place and reinvent it.
02:30Because as you've seen, it's not just a museum, but it is a true city, a place of welcome,
02:37of research and exploration.
02:40We are all citizens of this place because we are all citizens of the French language.
02:47Yes, we share many things.
02:51More than just phonetics or grammatics or autography.
02:57More than just points of grammar, of subjunctives and conditionals.
03:02More than past participles and different complex rules of the French language.
03:07We share a Rabelaisian heritage that is continuously evolving, bringing together a culture,
03:16a nation with this little bit of humor that has gone through the ages.
03:23And our language from Acadia and Quebec, from the Louisiana, from Haiti, from the heart
03:29of the African continent, from Morocco to Nishit, to the Congo River Basin, from Madagascar
03:35to the island of RĂ©union, from Vietnam to Cambodia, from Oceania, from French Polynesia
03:44to Vanuatu.
03:48The sun never sets on this language.
03:52There are over 300 million men and women who speak on five continents the French language.
03:58More than 500 million people who are continuously trying to improve it and enrich it.
04:06And you've seen written over there, words in French written from the whole of France,
04:14from all over the world, lots of words coming from other continents.
04:21And these are the words, the francophonie that unites us.
04:26And it was invented, it was seen by other places than France itself.
04:32It was first wanted by our writers, then by our journalists, by our radio presenters
04:39or radio workers.
04:40Then it was promoted and institutionalized in 1970 in Niamey by the president of Senegal,
04:49Senghor Ougiba Winyi, and the Prince Yannouk of Cambodia.
04:55And today it is made up of 88 states, and I'd like to congratulate those who will join
05:00us tomorrow, Madam Secretary General.
05:04From the very beginning, it was a decentralized organization, which at the end of decolonization
05:11wanted to stand up for a language that we all share.
05:17That is why the French language has created the francophonie and given itself its own
05:26tools and creating its own structure and an environment that is its very own.
05:31Our language is a territory that has to be built.
05:36Of course, we have the Académie Française here in France, and I'd like to commend its
05:40representatives who are here with us.
05:42That is an institution.
05:44But there is also the dictionary of the francophones and of francophonie, which we didn't build
05:49as something to compete with the Académie, but it is also something that inspires us.
05:54Our language is also something that helps us inform ourselves and understand the world.
05:57And since yesterday, we've been so happy to be able to see another fresh face on our family
06:05photo because Madame Giménez is now the head of TV5Monde.
06:11I'd also like to thank Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, Monaco, Canada, Quebec, and Wallonie-Bruxelles
06:17for their contributions to this formidable project of Information du Monde and to sharing
06:24our common understanding.
06:27We also want to make it easier for new partners come from the whole of African continent to
06:33also have the same will to support free journalism to join us.
06:40And that is something that we're working on with President Ouattara, and we've been working
06:43on it for several years.
06:44It is an important project of ours.
06:47Our language is also a space of creation.
06:50Francophonie is a treasure of our various literatures, of our authors, authors that
06:55we share, whether this be under the foot of a cedar tree or at the peak of our mountains.
07:04Because through our language, we create imaginary worlds which structure our francophone reality.
07:11And sharing beyond borders is a duty for us.
07:14And so, that is why I also commend the project of collecting the referential work of Francophonie.
07:21This is a project that will allow these works to be showcased in different languages.
07:28The Collection FenĂȘtre, it will have francophone books translated into Arabic.
07:37They will be sold for $2, and they will allow everyone to be able to have access to the
07:41ideas, the imaginary, and the values that are carried by francophone writers.
07:47I think this will be an important step forward in the same way as in 2018, we launched at
07:54the Académie Française, we launched a support program for our interpreters and translators.
08:00Our language is more than a tool.
08:03It is an entire universe.
08:05It is a space of opportunity to create, to be able to create a space for artistic creation.
08:16And I know, Madame Secretary General, that you have long supported the creative industries,
08:21and we will have many an opportunity during this day to talk about this.
08:27Guillaume Gallienne will be reading an amazing text to us, and the Comédie Française will
08:33also be here to share their work with us.
08:36Throughout this day, we have artists representing the francophone world to showcase this creativity.
08:42But our language is also a language to do commerce in, to do business in, because it
08:50is very international.
08:51If you look at Africa or Oceania, French is the language of passage.
08:58It is the language that allows you to move between all the regional languages, all the
09:03local languages.
09:04It makes it possible to unify the business world of an entire country or even an entire
09:09sub-region.
09:10And so it is a wonderful lever of opportunity.
09:12And I say this to all the young people today, all the people who are going into business.
09:17Don't think in English, think in French.
09:21Throughout the Indian Ocean, you can do business and you can reunify these regions, going from
09:26Madagascar to the RĂ©union, to Mayotte, to the Comoros.
09:31This is a language that unifies this regional space.
09:35The same thing in the Pacific.
09:37The same thing as in all of West Africa.
09:41So it is true that the 330 million people that belong to Francophonie, and if it will
09:51grow in the following years, it's because French is such an attractive language because
09:57of its economic and business potential.
10:03Entrepreneur is a French word, even though our Anglophone friends might think otherwise.
10:09And that's why I'd like to commend all the entrepreneurs and innovators who joined us
10:12at this summit.
10:13And I'd like to also commend the extraordinary energy from Francotech.
10:18I'd like to thank Monsieur BĂ©zieux, I'd like to thank the teams of the summit who I'd like
10:23to really thank, the Secretary General of Business France, because you demonstrated
10:28that our capacity to innovate in all fields, from sustainable development technologies,
10:35all these things allowed the Francophone space to go forward and to create new opportunities.
10:39Bravo.
10:41Yes.
10:43Innovation is a French world, and so is invention.
10:46And that is why we work tirelessly with our partners, including the World Intellectual
10:53Property Copyright Organization, in order to launch a French copywriter alliance.
11:05Our language is also a language of transmission.
11:08And I'd like to pay homage here to teachers and professors who all over the world have
11:13been teaching French, whether French is our mother tongue, or if we learnt it.
11:22It is something that is intimate for us.
11:24It is something that carries our thoughts, our hopes, our revolts, and our emotions.
11:28The words that we use condition the ideas that we think that also influence the freedoms
11:34that we have at hand, and that is why we need to protect our teaching and maintain quality
11:40education to make sure that each and every Francophone person can create their own educational
11:47pathway.
11:48And we will continue supporting the educational systems of Francophone countries through the
11:54OIF, the International Organization of Francophonie, just as we have done through the reform of
11:58the AFE.
11:59These are shared goals throughout our organization.
12:05I'm thinking about the Regional Centers for Education and Training, which cooperates with
12:10our national organizations.
12:13I'm thinking about TV Sank World, I'm thinking about the Université Senghor in the beautiful
12:18city of Alexandria.
12:20And let me also take a moment to speak to the representatives of Egypt who are working
12:30on the installation of the Senghor University in the new tower of Ben-Gahara, the new campus
12:35there.
12:36But even here, in this international city of the French language, at Villers-Coutiers,
12:44you will not just see a place of heritage that we've renovated, you will not just see
12:50a place of culture and permanent creation.
12:53I'd like to congratulate the teams and all the people who have been working here.
12:59We also have artists' residence, places for training, and we will also create and launch
13:06at this summit the International CollĂšge of Villers-Coutiers.
13:10The international city of the French language will become a laboratory of excellence in
13:15order to train teachers of French, and in French, teachers of future entrepreneurs,
13:23translators, interpreters, and it will welcome various researchers, specialists, and so on and so forth.
13:31It will be a place of transmission that will allow to irrigate the fields that have already
13:36been planted by our governments and our capitals, all these projects to make our language more
13:42dynamic.
13:43And because teaching French and French translation is the engine of our language, and I'd like
13:50to thank M. Aude for the importance he's given to translation, because it reflects
13:57all our richness and diversity, because if there's one thing that really characterizes
14:02the French-speaking world and Francophonie, it's our hospitality.
14:06We welcome people in our language, and this has always been reflected by multilingualism
14:14and translation.
14:16So it's important that the teaching of French everywhere in the world is also reflected
14:22by our capacity of being able to teach in all our regions other languages, such as English,
14:26Mandarin, Chinese, Arabic, or Spanish, because this is a capacity to think language and the
14:34passage of language.
14:35A language is not something that is closed in on itself.
14:38Our language is open, and it opens up a space of communication and of sharing.
14:46And Francophonie is everywhere, something that allows us to create a network, a network
14:52of friendships, of diplomacies, of action, of different network of analyses.
14:59It's always fascinating, for example, in Canada to see the love of French that is carried
15:07by that country.
15:11It's carried that way and expressed that way in Ottawa, as well as in Montreal, Ottawa,
15:21and it's defended in different ways, but it's still defended because it's a language of
15:25reinvention and invention, of combat, of expression.
15:29And that's why the Francophonie is a brotherhood, a non-exclusive brotherhood that only wishes
15:36to share its values.
15:38It is a utopia that has opened up its space to us all.
15:43It is this great wind, this bit of fresh air that allows us to mix, to creolize, to reinvent.
15:52And it is this wonderful space that allows writers such as François Schengen, who learned
15:57our language after the age of 20, to become members of our academy.
16:02It allows a young Lebanese person to write in our language and to become, like Amine
16:07Malouf did, to become the perpetual secretary of our academy.
16:12That allows a young Russian person such as Andrei Makin to discover our language in Siberia
16:17and to devote his entire life to it.
16:20And it also allowed a young Haitian writer to become one of the favorite writers of Canadians
16:28and to be adopted by the Académie Française as a mentor.
16:34I'm talking about M. FerriĂšre.
16:37It allowed M. Katan to write his first book about Lebanon, but it's very Christian.
16:46We also have other writers who've mixed Albanian reality with the French languages.
16:54And there have been many signs through all this that French is a bridge between centuries,
17:04peoples and individuals.
17:07The French language and the francophonie is what allows us to do things, to create a universe
17:14that is shared and reinvented, a humanism that is decentralized, respectuous, based
17:20on the recognition of cultures and peoples, just like Suleymane Bachir Dian described
17:27in his last book.
17:29This is also why I am convinced that the francophonie is a space of diplomatic influence that allows
17:38us to confront the challenges of our century.
17:41It is together in French that we have to be able to meet the challenge of technological
17:48transformations.
17:49It is together in French that we will have to confront the challenge of transformations
17:53and strengthen our preparation to this, and also build a digital order that will protect
17:58our citizens.
17:59It is together and in French that we will have to fight against disinformation, against
18:04the propagation of hatred online.
18:06We will have to fight against hate speech, racist words, anti-Semitic texts.
18:15And that is why, and Bruno Patino in a few minutes will tell you with the discussions
18:22that he's been working on, it is also why with the call of Villers-CotterĂȘts, we will
18:29be calling in very clear words on the digital actors to build a safer and more diverse space.
18:39There must be moderation in French in order to combat all the hate speech.
18:45And the International Organization of Francophonie is going to fight for this cause.
18:52It is also in French that we need to meet the challenge of artificial intelligence.
19:06We have to make sure that we can maintain open source innovation in French.
19:11And that is why next year we will have a summit on the innovation in artificial intelligence
19:17where Francophonie will have a star role to enable us to have a dialogue on innovation
19:24in artificial intelligence.
19:26And at the G7 summit, Mr. Trudeau also will carry these innovations that we defend together.
19:35Francophonie is also a place where together we can also defend a diplomacy that defends
19:42sovereignty, territorial integrity everywhere on this planet, where we can speak in a single
19:50voice, in a single voice next to Ukraine, and stand next to Ukraine, who has been threatened
19:57in its integrity by its Russian neighbour, that there should be no double standards where
20:01every life should be equal in all conflicts around the world.
20:05And we all believe in the freedom of countries to be able to govern themselves.
20:11There cannot be peace in the Middle East without a two-state solution.
20:15We also think about our Median brothers and respect their territorial integrity.
20:21We are also standing next to our Lebanese brethren who have also been attacked in their
20:29sovereignty.
20:31We defend the sovereignty of all the peoples and states of the Pacific, which must be a
20:37peaceful region and where no power should be able to undermine this peace.
20:47We also defend these humanist values that call us to stand by all our brothers in the
20:56Francophone world and everywhere else.
20:59And so we also ask for humanist spaces and the civil population to be protected everywhere
21:04and at all times.
21:07It is clear, the Francophonie's programme is an agenda for peace and sustainable development,
21:15as you saw when we voted on the 22nd of September to adopt the Pact for the Future.
21:19And I'd like to commend the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose participation was decisive
21:26for us to be able to move forward.
21:30Francophonie is this solidarity of 330 million souls.
21:38A city that has the French language as a foundation and has the entire world as a horizon, and
21:46the desire is something that is universal, that is made up of many different individualities.
21:54It is something wonderful, and that is why I am very happy to be able to welcome you
21:59in this city of Villers-CotterĂȘts, the city of the royal decree of Francis I, also the
22:08city of Alexandre Dumas, a city that is yours because of its international dimension.
22:14And I'd like to thank every one of you for being here with us today, and I'd like to
22:19thank you for your commitment.
22:21Long live the French language and to the common work that the International Organization
22:26of Francophonie is doing.
22:28Long life to all of you and all of us.