Culture - Jean-Yves Le Drian launches the fifth edition of the Night of Ideas (Nuit des Idées) (30 January 2020)

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Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves le Drian presided over the opening of the fifth Nuit des Idées (Night of Ideas) at the Quai d’Orsay with Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition Elisabeth Borne. Taking place on 30 January, this latest edition brought together several thousand people through 220 events held in 90 countries, including 48 events in France.

Watch the debate:

Attendees are invited to consider the major environmental challenges of our time through dialogues on ecological balance, technological changes, and the advent of artificial intelligence. In this International Year of Biodiversity and a few months ahead of the next IUCN World Conservation Congress, to be held this June in Marseille, France is focusing discussion on priority challenges.

The event being held at the Quai d’Orsay will welcome three young international activists representing the mobilization of young people in defense of the environment: Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, who is arriving from Uganda where she founded the movement Fridays for Future Uganda; Kristin Rodrigo, Canadian ambassador for the organization Young Reporters for the Environment; and Nathan Méténier, a French student and spokesperson for the Youth and Environment Europe NGO network. This dialogue will be moderated by Hervé Gardette, a producer on the France Culture broadcast “Moudre,” and will also feature young students from the Lycée de Poissy who helped draft the European Declaration of Rights for the Planet and for Life.

Supported by the Institut Français, an operator of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, the Night of Ideas is an annual event that formulates innovative proposals to foster cultural dialogue and knowledge and to showcase the international and cultural scenes of countries around the world in a festive atmosphere. The Night of Ideas demonstrates the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs’ commitment to serving civil societies through the circulation of ideas and public debate and reflects its policy on Francophonie and the French language, whose expansion it supports as a language in which to debate and interrogate the contemporary world.