Today's Date:

(…) As writers writing in French, but who may be American, Asian, European, African, inhabiting a shared house which everyone is free to leave, and everyone is free to drop into, your presence lends a unique dimension to this Book Fair. It cogently testifies to an unprecedented mobilization in support of vital objectives of concern to us all.

Caught up in the throes of globalization, an entire old-established order is being turned upside down. At a time when the increase in exchanges seems to carry within it the threat of uniformity, our societies are discovering that they are more diverse, and, at times, this troubles them.

Confronted with these radical changes, La Francophonie [IOF – international Francophone organization] is an indispensable testing ground for the new forms of modernity. Because it has, from the outset, pioneered diversity.

In the wake of countries' independence, the Francophone movement developed around use of the French language, the "marvellous tool” which Léopold Sédar Senghor talked about, and which we live in as much as it dwells in us.

Worldwide, there are 180 million French speakers. Thanks to them, every day it evolves, is being enriched through their different ways of looking at things and expressing themselves. Because speaking French does not, of course, mean refusing to speak Creole, Arabic or Soninke, it means doing all this and much more. This is multiplication not subtraction.

Under the aegis of its founding fathers, Habib Bourguiba, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Hamani Diori and others too, La Francophonie has, from its very beginning, taken on board the fight for diversity and equal dignity of cultures and languages. Today it is still in the vanguard of it.

Rallying round a democratic and pluralist ideal, at France and Canada's initiative, it also fought for the adoption at UNESCO of the cultural diversity convention. The Bill to ratify this important text, currently before the French parliament, will be discussed at a Council of Ministers' meeting, in Paris, before the end of the month.

Diversity is clearly a source of wealth. Working alongside the OIF, which has just been reformed in order to inject new momentum into the organization, France is determined to make it a strength.

Books are both an irreplaceable vehicle for promoting it and of vital importance. The leading cultural industry sector, ahead of the video/DVD, film and record industries, French publishing is remarkably vibrant. With nearly 600,000 titles available and over 50,000 new books published every year, some 600 publishers and a solid network of both independent booksellers and large book and multi-media stores, the French book industry is today healthy. And our publishers achieve a quarter of their turnover from exports, two thirds of which go to Francophone countries.

Yet we must remain particularly vigilant.

Vigilant, since the abundant supply of new books, in itself positive, also has a downside: books stay less time in bookshops and the market naturally tends favour what is very familiar to it over what it is less conversant with.

Vigilant, since the increase in the exchanges is a source of new vulnerabilities: it is still a struggle to access both fictional and educational books in the South; and, everywhere, independent bookshops, which sell the majority of literary and social science books, are in great need of encouragement and support.

Writers, publishers, booksellers who take risks must be better supported. In this respect, the National Book Centre plays an essential role and its modus operandi and resources warrant bolstering.

We must also step up our efforts to support the book trade in the countries of the South. In cooperation with all the partners involved – industry professionals, OIF, World Bank and European Commission – the French Development Agency must more effectively integrate books into education programmes and swiftly establish the tools to do so.

On a more general note, our funding of cultural, linguistic, university and scientific activities, particularly when it comes to promoting the French language and the publishing of books and the written word, must no longer be affected by budgetary cuts. This is a priority. I have asked the government to pay especial attention to it.

My dear friends,

La Francophonie is in truth many-voiced – simultaneously foreign and familiar voices, like yours, hailing from Greece, Morocco, Benin, Lebanon, Canada, the United States and elsewhere. The fact that you have chosen French, or that it has chosen you, the close relationship you enjoy with it is, in reality, one of exchange. In it you create, through you it becomes richer.

It's this ethic of exchange and dialogue, so necessary in our time, that we bid La Francophonie to adopt. Thank you./.