ISLAMABAD, Nov 8: Pakistan has been receiving increasing attention in France as a partner in the global struggle to eradicate terrorism and as a state that offers economic opportunities.
This geo-political perspective of Pakistan was given by Dr Jean-Luc Racine of the Centre for Indian and South Asian Studies in Paris at the concluding session of a seminar on the global security perspectives and worldview of the two countries here on Wednesday.
“We can say things are really moving, though mutual trade remains relatively small,” the research scholar said.
Last year the trade, which has expanded from military sales to include pharmaceuticals etc on the French side, touched $1 billion mark.
A conference titled “Beyond the Cliches” held by business interests in Paris in 2005 helped promote Pakistan in France, he observed.
Dr Racine said education was the other area of cooperation and disclosed that the French government would establish a university of technology in Karachi.
Fauzia Nasreen, Additional Secretary for Europe in the Foreign Ministry, observed that France recognised Pakistan’s geo-strategic significance. Its “balanced approach” in foreign affairs made it “a bridge between the West and the Muslim countries,” she added.
Dr Pierre Grosser, speaking about the search for new ways and means of influence in the post-Cold War period, that the debate in France has centred on power. “France has been using the European Union to maximise its power,” he said.
However he was unsure how successful a multi-polar world would be. “There is no way to prove, for example, that a more powerful China would be better for the world,” he said.
The two-day seminar was jointly organised by the French embassy in Pakistan and the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad.
