Ambassadors Message
This year has been a very challenging year for France. French people successfully went through, electing their new President, Emmanuel Macron, and granting him a large majority at the National Assembly, to support the implementation of his ambitious program for France and for Europe.
I am proud to see that French people were wise enough to confirm their determination to remain open to the world, despite the wide range of threats weakening our environment.
The election of our new President is not only a victory for France: we could feel that this election was perceived as a new breath infusing a revived dynamics to our near environment and beyond, first of all to Europe.
As a French national and a European citizen, celebrating our National Day, I am proud to belong to a country where human rights, the values of democracy, solidarity and diversity prevail, because these values are our strength and the guarantee of our victory over the many threats that we are facing today, on top of which those forces which aim at destabilizing our nation, our state and our way of life, resorting
to intolerance, violence and even terror.
Our national values and convictions are also the principles funding our European Union.
With the election of our new President, we the French people have reaffirmed our choice for a stronger, united Europe, determined to defend its common interests but also fully committed to work for a better, peaceful and sustainable world.
Peace is at stake all over the world, but I am confident that with and within the European Union, by joining our forces with our allies, we will manage to get rid of the threat of the Islamic State which has destabilized our neighborhood and beyond.
A better, peaceful world is also a resilient, fair, poverty-free world. This is for France a major challenge for the upcoming decades, which we can collectively handle through implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, and this is a key priority of the EU Global Strategy. France as EU Member State is fully supportive of this new Strategy, which represents a fundamental step in the construction of the European Union as a global power, fully aware of its interests, but also fully aware of its responsibilities before the world.
Another major challenging issue is the sustainability of our planet, as the earth is dangerously exposed to the consequences of the increase of the global temperature. This is the reason why my country is leading by example, with and within the European Union through setting up our new economic model relying upon the low-carbon energy strategy that France adopted in 2015, anticipating the Paris Agreement to fight climate change adopted in Paris in December 2015.
Security, fight against climate change, sustainable and resilient development, are priorities that we share with Bangladesh.
Here in Bangladesh, our current events are also more than ever European: France and Germany together have just moved to their new co-located Franco-German Embassy, which is a powerful symbol of our European identity, enshrined in our national identities. France and Germany together, the European Union is stronger, because we are the core of our European Union.
As for France, in Bangladesh, we are fully committed to anchoring our bilateral relationships in priority fields of common interests, spanning from scientific cooperation on ocean-related and maritime issues to business and cooperation on water, energy and other strategic sectors.
This approach includes some iconic projects, such as the Bangabhandu satellite.
I wish this relationship keeps on flourishing in the coming years, I wish more and more people-to-people contacts, so that our two countries engage in new fields of cooperation, building new bridges between Europe and South-Asia.
Vive la France et Vive le Bangladesh!
HE Sophie Aubert
Ambassador of France to Bangladesh
