French ambassador: HM King’s visit great opportunity to boost ties, widen cooperation

Manama, Apr. 29 (BNA): France's Ambassador to Bahrain Cécile Longé said that the visit by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to Paris is an eagerly anticipated opportunity to boost relations and widen cooperation between the two countries. "Our economic and diplomatic relations are very good, and the visit of HM the King is a testimony to their status," she said, referring to the visit by HM King Hamad to Paris for talks with President Emmanuel Macron and senior officials. "His Majesty has been welcomed by our successive presidents without any exception and will be received by President Emanuel Macron. The meeting is a normal and logical flow of the close ties. It will be a successful visit and a real catalyst for closer ties. Everybody is keen on it and all the topics to be discussed and the agreements to be signed have been thoroughly prepared,” the ambassador told Bahrain TV International. The ambassador said that the she and her team at the embassy saw the visit as a dream come true. "As an ambassador and for me and my team, it is a dream because many topics have been addressed to the point of achievement so that we can have good results in the fields of education, law, digitalization of audiovisual archives, and medical cooperation, just to mention only these things," she said. The ambassador said that political links between the two countries have been steadily growing. There have been regular meetings between Bahraini and French officials in Bahrain and France as well as on the sideline of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and recently at Sharm El Sheikh, she said. The French diplomat said that economic relations were also good but insisted they could be strengthened. "As far as the economic relationships are concerned, they are also quite deep. We have a strong economic presence, and our economic relations are dynamic, but they could be thickened and strengthened. We export mainly chemicals and pharmaceuticals and we import mainly refined oil products," she said. "We hope to be more present. We are aiming at contributing to the Metro network that will be launched. We have the capacity to do our best and to go along at the best level with the legitimate ambitious of development of Bahrain within its vision to achieve and particularly some of the great projects that Bahrain is setting." Media and cultural cooperation remains among the most visible between the two countries because it encompasses the sectors of language, university, governance, and cultural events, she added. "I would like to stress the excellent dialogue that we have here in the embassy with the Bahraini Authority for Culture and Antiquities or many of the universities mainly with UoB and RUW and the AGU in Bahrain. We have strong links with the Institut de Langue Francaise within UoB to teach Bahraini students to become French teachers," she said. "I have to say that one of our priorities in partnership with the local authorities is to boost the teaching of French language. We are extremely aware of the strong desire of His Majesty himself to engage to enhance trilingualism in Bahrain. His Majesty is keen on education excellence and on optimizing the abilities of the youth who really need to have all assets on their resumés on the journey to become the stakeholders of the development and brilliant future." Ambassador Longé said that she was grateful for all the cooperation and assistance she has received in Bahrain. "I would like to thank all the Bahraini authorities who have been very cooperative, made everything easy and possible to speed up the process and we are very appreciative of this mindset." The diplomat said that she had been touched by the messages of sympathy she received following the blaze at Notre Dame. "We have received at the French embassy many messages of solidarity after the blaze in Paris which really touched us. I would like use this opportunity to thank the Bahraini people, authorities, officials and ministers for this."