Today's Date:

Ever since the 1997 Hanoi Summit, the Francophone Community has set about fundamentally reforming the way it operates and its instruments. This effort is bearing fruit. The Francophone movement is increasingly proving its usefulness. The events of 11 September showed that today's world needed a dialogue between the cultures, a dialogue respecting individual identities and universal rights. By its very nature, the Francophone Community can and must help take up this challenge.

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So I would like to tell you in a few words how we see the Francophone Community's action developing in the coming years.

International society has radically changed over the past few years. The globalization process we are going through has led to a growing role being played by new actors: international organizations, non-governmental organizations, voluntary agencies, local authorities, and economic and social players. It's important to take them into account. The Francophone Community can and must contribute to bringing about controlled globalization. That's clearly the central message emerging from the declaration of the Francophone Community culture ministers in Cotonou, in June 2001.

For France, the best means of achieving this is to develop our dialogue with Francophone countries (...) for some very concrete reasons.

In the first place, we must actively demonstrate our solidarity with the Southern Francophone countries and allow them to have a real say in the major international negotiations because, as we well know, these negotiations are fundamental when it comes to drawing up future standards, and everyone must be able to defend their interests fairly.

Secondly, the Francophone Community must cooperate with a view to drawing up credible national policies, preparing projects eligible for funding from the major international institutions. The education sector seems to us to provide a perfect illustration of what we are seeking to do. The situation there isn't satisfactory. It is even tragic in some of our countries even though education is quite obviously a key to development. Education is also, just as obviously, a sphere which definitely can't be left solely to market forces. And there are opportunities for taking action. Conscious of the risk of relying on a single model, the World Bank is today ready to listen to what the Francophones are saying.

The debt reduction initiative allows the release of new resources for education. So it's important for the Francophone Community to make its voice more widely heard in this essential debate for the future. The resources we have available in the sector are too modest - less than 4 million euro - to make a massive contribution on the ground. They are, on the other hand, sufficient to help steer the fund providers' decisions in the direction of what we are arguing for. (...)./.

The Francophony organization is continuing its work. The 16th ministerial conference will be held in Paris on January 10 at the International Conference Center.

France will be represented by the Minister Delegate for Cooperation and Francophony, Charles Josselin.

This is an important conference because it is to adopt the program for operators in a multilateral Francophony for 2002-2003. There will also be a discussion on the adoption of the corresponding budget for the program. May I remind you that the total budget for multilateral Francophony runs to about 180 million euros a year.

The conference will endorse more intensive action on a few main objectives:

- entrenching democracy in the Francophone world and fostering cultural diversity--the mission of the intergovernmental Francophony agency;
- more mobility for students and researchers--the task of the Francophony academic agency;
- modernizing the management of municipal services--the job of the international association for French-speaking mayors.
As the Beirut summit, which was to have been held in October 2002, has had to be postponed, the program will be submitted to ministers responsible for Francophony. It will however take into account the conclusions of the Bamako symposium on democracy, rights and freedoms, and the Francophony cultural ministers' conference in Cotonou.

The conference will also draw conclusions from the assessment by the Francophony intergovernmental agency and continue the process of revamping the instruments and methods of multilateral Francophony; the Francophony High Council is also due for reform at this meeting.

Finally, the conference will formally note that the organization's secretary-general, Boutros Boutros Ghali, is to remain in the post and will proceed with the nomination of a general administrator for the intergovernmental agency. As is customary, the conference will be preceded by a meeting of the permanent council of the Francophony./.