KARACHI: The Alliance Francaise Karachi introduced to the media its new management team and a series of cultural programmes lined up for the next quarter at a press conference on Thursday.

Alliance Francaise president Johara Alatas said the purpose of inviting journalists was to introduce them to a set of teachers and new management personnel at the French cultural centre. She said the cultural and cooperation counselor at the French embassy in Islamabad, Martine Herlem-Hamidi, had especially come to Karachi to attend the press briefing, and asked her to say a few words.

Martine Herlem-Hamidi said she’s impressed by Karachi. The people in the city were friendly and the weather warm. She said the ministry of foreign affairs kept a close relationship with the Alliance Francaise as the latter had played an important role in the fields of culture and education. It had also helped strengthen ties between Pakistan and France.

The director of the Alliance Francaise, Jean-Francois Chenin, lightened up the mood of the press conference by saying that as director of the cultural centre he had two missions: one, to manage the development of the Alliance Francaise and promote the French language; two, to improve his English because he’d been associated with the cultural centre for 15 years, posted in different countries, and hadn’t yet properly learnt English.

Chenin said there were 1,000 Alliance Francaise in the world working under the umbrella of the Alliance Francaise in Paris. He then formally introduced three new members of his team – Marion Rolland (development manager), Eric Touze (cultural and EFL learning manager) and Laurent Elisio Bordier (deputy director/director of studies) – to the media.

Marion Rolland (who can speak Urdu also) said she had been in Pakistan for the past two weeks. Apart from her job on the development side, she’d been working as a French teacher and had a passion for the French language.

Eric Touze said he’d worked in China for many years and had taught French at a university. Besides doing his bit at the Alliance Francaise he’d also be teaching at a couple of Karachi’s educational institutions. It would be his job to arrange cultural programmes, including lectures, exhibitions and, most importantly, to reorganise the library.

Laurent Elisio Bordier said there were two aspects of his mission: one was to do with teaching while the other with textbooks and courses. He argued there was a need for changing some of the courses.

After that Chenin informed journalists on some of the programmes the cultural centre intended to organise. In 2014 the restaurant at the centre would be reopened where European cuisine would be served, while a bookstore would be inaugurated at the end of November 2013.

Shedding light on the cultural events, he said a European film festival had already kicked off (from Oct 1) and would run till December. Another programme was called ‘Free time rendezvous’ in which twice a month poets, musicians and actors would perform. In February 2014 an international conference on ‘New European contributions to the study of Sindh and Balochistan’ would be held. At that moment, Ms Hamidi interjected and said the moot was of great importance as eminent scholars would take part in it.

Replying to a question Chenin said the bookstore would have books in many languages. Answering another query, he said soon the Alliance Francaise would organise (western classical) music concerts.