Finland

French presence

French consular section: Helsinki
French community in Finland: 3,488 people in 2023
Finnish community in France: about 7,000 people

Visits

Bilateral contact is regular and diverse.
President Emmanuel Macron made an official visit to Helsinki on 29 and 30 August 2018, meeting with President Sauli Niinistö and then Prime Minister Juha Sipilä. The most recent visit to France by the Finnish President was on 2 February 2021, where he met with President Macron. President Niinistö also took part in the Armistice Centenary ceremonies in November 2018, the first Paris Peace Forum, and the military parade on 14 July 2019. The French President also received current Prime Minister Petteri Orpo in Paris on 4 October 2023.

The former Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, travelled to Finland on 28 September 2023, where she met Prime Minister Petteri Orpo as well as her counterpart, Elina Valtonen. This meeting was an opportunity to commend the strong and stable links between the two countries and discuss the quality of French Finnish cooperation, particularly in the civil nuclear sector. In February 2022, the then Minister of State for European Affairs Clément Beaune met his Finnish counterpart in Paris, following a visit to Helsinki in November 2021 to present to him and President Niinistö the priorities of the French EU Presidency. Before that, the then Minister of State for European Affairs Amélie de Montchalin visited Finland in August 2019, where she met, among others, the then Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavisto, and the then Minister for European Affairs, Tytti Tuppurainen.

Ambassadors

Ms Agnès Cukierman has been the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the French Republic to the Republic of Finland since September 2020.
Mr Matti Anttonen has been the Ambassador of the Republic of Finland to France since September 2022.

Cultural, scientific and technical cooperation

Cultural, scientific and linguistic cooperation is handled by the Institut Français in Finland (IFF), which is attached to the Embassy of France.

France is Finland’s fifth-largest scientific partner. The two countries cooperate particularly closely in the fields of artificial intelligence, telecommunications and robotics, nanotechnologies, biotechnologies and sustainable development. In addition to the EU’s Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, France and Finland jointly offer the “Maupertuis” Hubert Curien Partnership, aimed at strengthening bilateral cooperation for innovation and research. Bilateral cooperation on telecommunications research is also encouraged by the Nokia research chair.

Academic cooperation is growing through the signing of agreements for exchanges of students and teaching staff between French and Finnish universities. Some 1,200 French Erasmus students study in Finland every year, making them the joint largest contingent alongside German students. At PhD level, joint supervisions are increasingly encouraged under research partnerships. Six European universities are also part of this scheme, under the Erasmus+ programme.

French is the third most-taught foreign language in Finland, after English and German, with 21,000 learners. Educational provision includes two establishments approved by the French Ministry of National Education that offer French teaching at pre-school and primary levels, as well as three bilingual programmes with the FrancEducation label (the French-Finnish School of Helsinki and Franco-Finnish programmes in Turku and Tampere).

Concerning cultural and artistic cooperation, the IFF supports the distribution of French productions, including in the film sector, in partnership with several Finnish festivals and the Finnish National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI), and in literature through the Publication Support Programme. The Night of Ideas and Francophonie Month are major cultural events. What’s more, in 2021, the IFF established a new strategic focus on architecture and design. France’s cultural initiatives also have a European dimension, with participation in joint projects through the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) cluster.