The 2025 World Expo: France in Osaka
The 2025 World Expo will take place in Osaka, Japan, from 13 April to 13 October 2025, focusing on the theme of “Designing Future Society for our Lives”. France will once more take part in this major event by creating its own pavilion, which was revealed at the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs on 9 January 2024.
First created in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, the World Expos showcase different States’ technical and artistic achievements, presenting creations from the worlds of industry, applied arts and fine arts to a broad public.
From Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone in Philadelphia in 1876 and the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1889 to the humanoid robots presented by Toyota, Sony and Honda in Aichi in 2005, the World Expos have always shone a spotlight on the major industrial and technical innovations of their time.
Today, the World Expos are unique international events that bring together tens of millions of visitors and invite them to explore a universal theme in an interactive and immersive way. They form major platforms for education and progress and foster connections between governments, companies, international organizations and citizens.
The Osaka 2025 World Expo, “Designing Future Society”
The Osaka 2025 World Expo aims to act as an international laboratory for innovation and expertise to build the society of the future, based on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). More than 160 countries will be represented and 28 million people are expected to visit the event.
The site of the Expo on Yumeshima, an artificial island in Osaka Bay, will span over 155 hectares. The national pavilions will be in an area called Pavilion World, which will be divided into three zones, organized by theme:
- Saving lives
- Empowering lives
- Connecting lives
The France Pavilion, showcasing French innovation and influence
Located opposite the main entrance to the World Expo and near the Japan Pavilion, the France Pavilion will offer an immersive experience that is open to everyone, based on a central theme: “A hymn to love”.
In the “Empowering lives” zone, the permanent exhibition at the France Pavilion is designed as a walkway that opens up dialogue between three forms of love: love for oneself (by showcasing everyone’s abilities and skills), love for others (through the French art de vivre as well as solidarity and inclusion) and love for nature (to better protect, restore and use it sustainably).
Over the six months of the Expo, the Pavilion’s programme will feature six temporary exhibitions presenting vibrant savoir-faire, works of art and live immersive experiences, as well as 12 thematic sessions based on the SDGs.
The Pavilion will also be accessible remotely in a virtual format, in order to include as many people as possible – particularly those who are furthest away and young people. Recreated as an immersive experience, this will enable people to visit the Pavilion from their own homes or designated public spaces.
The France Pavilion at the Osaka 2025 World Expo will illustrate Brand France and aims to promote the economic momentum generated by the country, which is recognized as a global leader of the art de vivre and the cultural and creative industries and strives to promote new-generation, low-carbon reindustrialization.
“Visitors to the France Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka will discover this French vision of the world – a hymn not only to love, but also boldness and dialogue.”
Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic