His Excellency, President of the French Republic, Mr. Emmanuel Macron, inaugurated, on Monday in Villers-Cotterêts, in the department of Aisne, the Cité internationale de la langue française (international city of French Language), a fully restored Renaissance castle dedicated to the history and development of the French language.
“The French language builds the unity of the nation” and is “a language of freedom and universalism”, said the President of the French Republic, in a speech delivered in the courtyard of the castle where, in 1539, Francis I signed the ordinance imposing French in legal texts, the first step towards its use as an official language.
This grandiose and unprecedented cultural project, the first place in the world dedicated to the French language, is a “crazy dream”, a “utopia achieved”, noted Macron, who in 2017, during his first presidential campaign, discovered this former royal hunting residence in an advanced state of disrepair.
According to President Macron, the site will pay special tribute to the “essential figures” of the French language: teachers, writers and creators, actors, librarians and translators, “who pass on the French language and bring it to life in this constant pulse”.
A cubic “magic library” containing thousands of books, where artificial intelligence provides visitors with personalized reading advice, interactive dictation, shows and artist residencies: the Cité “is not a museum”, as its director Paul Rondin pointed out.
Villers-Cotterêts, 80 km from the capital, will host the Francophonie summit in autumn 2024, to which the leaders of 88 countries will be invited.
