Conference at Saint Joseph University of Beirut

It was before a packed amphitheatre that Juliana Amato Lumumba delivered this Monday 28 April her inaugural lecture of the Francophonie chair at Saint Joseph University of Beirut. Four hundred Lebanese students, but also guests from Syria, Jordan and Palestine, gathered to attend a 90-minute address followed by a particularly intense Q&A session.

The conference theme — 'La Francophonie as a bridge between Africa and the Arab world' — was not chosen at random. Lebanon is one of the rare countries where the three official languages of La Francophonie (French, Arabic and English) coexist in everyday articulation. A particularly fertile ground to carry a multilingual vision of the Francophone space.

The candidate dwelled at length on the strategic value of the Sister Languages Initiative for the Arab world: 'If we want La Francophonie to make sense in Cairo, Tunis or Beirut, we must stop presenting it as a purely Francophone space. La Francophonie will be plurilingual or it will not be.'

The conference was followed by a meeting with the Rector of USJ and several members of the Lebanese government. An important step in the candidate's Middle Eastern tour, which will continue with Amman in early May and Cairo at the end of the month.