"I have a very strong link with the Alliance Française, because in my travels for 30 years I have always wanted to meet the French teachers of the Alliances all over the world; I am fascinated by this shared love of French," explains the writer, member of the Académie française, and former administrator of the Fondation des Alliances Françaises (AF).

"French is my love; And why do professors and writers from elsewhere share this same love? For reasons similar to mine or not? Their loves enlarge mine because they diversify it, in the same way that often seeing his wife being loved by others increases the love we have for her, "says Erik Orsenna.

From Thursday to Saturday, the Alliance Française (AF), which presents itself as "the largest cultural NGO in the world", organizes its world congress in Paris, bringing together more than 600 heads of institutions around the world, to celebrate its 140th anniversary.

AFs are associative institutions for teaching French under private and local law. Present in 133 countries through 829 institutions, their mission is to teach French, to have "a cultural program that presents French and Francophone culture and the cultures in which the Alliances are located" and to promote "humanist values".

A dozen new Alliances have opened since 2021, notably in Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia and Odessa, Ukraine. The Montreal Alliance recently reopened.

Throughout history, several personalities have frequented AF, such as the French writer of Argentine origin Hector Biancotti, the naturalized French Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki, the German supermodel Claudia Schiffer, or the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, marked in his youth by his discovery of French and French history in an AF in Argentina.

"Window on the world"

Shortly after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959, Western ambassadors were summoned, Bernard Cerquiglini, vice-president of the AF Foundation, told AFP. During this meeting, "Che Guevara told the France ambassador at the time that there was no question of closing the Alliance, that he had learned French at the Alliance to read Robespierre, Danton, Saint-Just!"

Alongside "Che" at this meeting, "Fidel Castro added that in the maquis he was reading the book +The French Revolution+ by Albert Soboul". "And they never closed the Alliance, unlike other international organizations... it's extraordinary, isn't it?" enthuses Cerquiglini.

Erik Orsenna during a ceremony at the French Academy in Paris on February 9, 2023 © Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP

"We must defend French because the end of any language is a huge window on the world that is dying out," says Mr. Orsenna. "Linguidiversity is the mother of all diversity!"

The academician says he is "happy and moved that AFs continue to open" around the world.

The writer is preparing for 2024 a book of photos and texts inspired by AF with Franco-Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, who has a strong personal link with AF.

Employed in his youth in the Vitoria Alliance in Brazil - while his country was undergoing a dictatorship - it was there that he discovered French and France.

"The Alliance Française, for me, is the greatest agent of French culture; France is the country of humanism, of interest in the cultures of others; and so the AF gave me a lot... and I hope that other young people can receive the same thing I received," says the photographer in the documentary "Alliance(s) française(s)" recently broadcast on TV5 Monde.

"At the Academy, I am one of those who say that we do not have ownership of the French language, we share it," says Mr. Orsenna. On Thursday, a fascinating debate at the congress allowed writers of foreign origin writing in French to explain their links with this language.

"French is the language that gave me a second life," said Vietnamese-Canadian writer Kim Thúy, about her escape as a child with her family as a "boat people" and then her exile in Quebec.

"Western languages have sometimes worn out their muscles so much that languages from elsewhere must provide them with proteins...", concluded the Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou, evoking the "Congolisms" of the French of the street spoken in Congo-Brazzaville.

© 2023 AFP