ISLAMABAD, March 20: Senate Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro inaugurated the Francophone week here on Monday featuring the Pakistani participation in the worldwide celebrations of French arts and culture.

On the occasion Mr Soomro remarked that languages played an important role in building human relationships and world solidarity.”This is the main message of the Francophone week,” he added.

Later he awarded the Pakistani Francophone Award 2006 to Dr Nashid Syed who heads the French department at Kinnaird College, Lahore.

Nashid Syed, speaking in French, expressed her gratitude for the award and said she would work whole heartedly for development of French language in Pakistan.

Nabila Ahmad, events manager of Alliance Francaise, the French cultural centre, announced that Canadian, French, Swiss, Italian and Romanian films will be screened at the centre during the week.

The programme also includes book launch of Jon Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere’s two comedy plays La Avare (The Miser) and Tartuffe (Irreclaimable Hypocrite) rendered in Urdu by Shaukat Niazi.

Ambassador of France Regis de Bedenet read out the message of Abdou Diouf, Francophone secretary-general, who called 2006 a special year because it had started with new reforms and adoption of a new charter at the Ministerial Conference of Antananarivo.

Since Francophone actively pursued the adoption of the convention on the protection and promotion of diversity of cultural expression, he said the organization would spend the year in mobilizing support for the convention’s ratification.

In his welcome address, Romanian Charge d’ Affaires Mircea Hurmuz stated that the international organization of Francophone groups 53 states and governments share French as common language to create political action in the “service of peace, democracy, and human rights”.

The next Francophone summit would be held at Bucharest in September, announced Mr Hurmuz.