Colombia

Political relations

Relations between France and Colombia have strengthened considerably. A few months after being sworn in, President Juan Manual Santos visited Paris in January 2011. Re-elected in June 2014, Mr Santos again paid an official visit to France on 26 and 27 January 2015. During the meeting between Presidents Hollande and Santos, France-Colombia Year 2017 was announced and a Franco-Colombian Strategic Committee (CSFC) was launched. It consists of eminent French and Colombian personalities from various backgrounds (business, culture, academia, civil society), and aims to strengthen the bilateral relationship. Further to the official visit of President Santos to Paris, the French Prime Minister, Mr Manuel Valls, visited Bogota on 25 June 2015. During the visit, 17 bilateral agreements were signed (France-Colombia Year 2017; tax agreement; €275 million “climate loan" from the Agence Française de Développement (French Development Agency, AFD); academic agreements, such as on the creation of an international observatory on ending violence; decentralized cooperation; working holiday agreement, etc.).

The French Minister of State for Development and Francophonie, Ms Annick Girardin, visited Medellín in October 2015 (inauguration of the French school (Lycée, etc.). Her successor, Mr André Vallini, visited Cartagena to represent France during the official signing ceremony of the peace agreement on 26 September 2016. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, Mr Jean-Marc Ayrault, visited Bogota and Medellín in December 2016 for the launch of France-Colombia Year 2017 President François Hollande made an official visit to Colombia from 22-24 January 2017, in the first French presidential visit to the country since François Mitterrand in 1989. President Santos was then received by President Macron during his official visit to France from 21-23 June 2017 for the launch of the Colombian Cultural Season in France for the second half of 2017.