Francophonie – 19th Francophonie summit in France, focusing on creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship in French (6 November 2023)

Communiqué issued by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affaires

At the end of the 44th Francophonie Ministerial Conference (CMF), which was held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, on 4 and 5 November 2023, France received the CMF presidency from Tunisia for the next two years, as the country hosting the 19th Francophonie summit in October 2024. The French delegation in Yaoundé was led by Mme Catherine Colonna, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Alongside Mme Louise Mushikiwabo, Secretary-General of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie [international Francophone organization – OIF], Mme Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, Minister of State for Francophonie and International Partnerships, presented the key issues of the next summit to States and governments that are OIF members.

The Francophonie summit will open on 4 October 2024 at the Cité internationale de la langue française, in Villers-Cotterêts, a place entirely dedicated to the French language and French-speaking cultures, inaugurated on 30 October 2023 by M. Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic. The summit will continue in Paris on 5 October 2024.

The 19th Francophonie summit will be a major event diplomatically, politically, economically and culturally, with the French language as a common thread. In France, it will be one of the international high points of 2024, together with the organization of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

France and the OIF foster the ambition to promote a Francophonie that serves peoples, and to demonstrate its dynamics and opportunities.

France and the OIF have agreed that creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship in the diversity of the Francophone world will be put at the heart of the event. Indeed, Francophonie is a tremendous vehicle for intellectual debates, creativity and jobs, and the French-speaking world harbours talent and opportunities we must be proud of. The chosen theme will invite everyone to “Create, innovate and do business in French”.

To illustrate this theme, France wanted to organize a Festival of Francophonie on the sidelines of the summit, to raise the profile of a dynamic Francophone world among French people and the whole French-speaking community. The Festival, created in consultation with the OIF, its member States and civil society, will contribute to the perception of an open, vibrant, multilingual, contemporary, productive and attractive Francophone world. It will bring to the fore the vitality of the French-speaking cultural, academic, scientific and entrepreneurial scenes, and will extend across the whole of Metropolitan and overseas territory, but also online and throughout the Francophone world.

In Paris, it will include a Francophonie Village, organized jointly with the OIF and its member States and governments taking part in the summit.