​FRANCE EMBASSY AWARDED PARTICIPANTS IN FRANCOPHONE CONTESTS

The French Embassy to Moldova awarded prizes to participants of three contests for the French-speaking community of Moldova. The contests were held in March and were dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Moldova’s accession to the International Organization of La Francophonie.

Within contests, organized by French Embassy to Moldova, Francophone University Agency [AUF, Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie] and the Alliance Francaise of Moldova, schoolchildren and students got the opportunity to participate in a contest of journalist works, a photo-contest and a contest of videos on the topic of Francophonie.

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to Moldova Pascal Vagogne stressed a great importance of Romanian-French lyceums and highly appreciated their activity, including their resistance, demonstrated in years of Communist rule, when authorities were trying to remove the word “francophone” from the names of these educational institutions.

“Mostly due to these lyceums Moldova is regarded as most French-speaking country in Central and Eastern Europe”, the Ambassador said.

Organizers said that these contests allowed discovering talents of young Francophiles – students and schoolchildren.

“These three contests have a mostly symbolic importance. We wanted that they to be innovative and to allow Moldovan young people and children to show their French language skills”, said AUF representative Roxana Turcanu.

Minister of Education Corina Fusu said that negotiations have been started with the French embassy to Moldova, the AUF and the Alliance Francaise in the view of signing a memorandum, aimed at continuing support in developing the potential of bilingual Francophone classes in educational institutions of the country.