President Bachelet: “Our relationship with France is based on political dialogue, scientific and academic cooperation, investment and culture.”
President Bachelet also emphasized French contributions to Chile in areas such as teacher training, technical professional training, and educational assessment systems.
Following a working meeting at Élysée Palace in Paris, Chilean President, Michelle Bachelet, and French President, François Hollande, issued a joint statement on the main issues addressed at the meeting.
President Bachelet explained that the countries had signed agreements on issues of gender equality, cooperation, investment, energy, concessions, science, technology, and education.
Regarding education, the President of Chile expanded upon the planned cooperation between Chile and France: “We believe that there are numerous areas with tremendous potential for further cooperation between Chile and France, including teacher training, integration of information technology, technical professional training and educational assessment systems.”
She underscored strengthening university cooperation, which seeks to promote student mobility through agreements that encourage Chilean students to earn doctoral degrees in France.
“We want more Chileans to speak better French. So, we have signed the Working Holiday agreement, which will allow young Chilean professionals to go to France and vice versa. Participants will experience the country’s culture and, of course, the language, thereby creating more opportunities for exchange,” said President Bachelet.
During the meeting, both presidents addressed Chile’s political situation.
“I talked with President Hollande about the path that our administration has taken to strengthen our political system through bills of law and regulations that promote transparency and integrity in order to increase the prestige of our services and regain the people’s trust. That path requires making the decisions and adopting the measures necessary to make progress toward transparency, integrity and anti-corruption,” said President Bachelet.
In science, the President announced that she and the French president had decided to resume cooperation on matters of space exploration, which “with the support of France’s National Center for Space Studies, will lead to creation of the Chilean Space Agency in the near future.”
In international relations, President Bachelet highlighted French support for modernizing Chile’s partnership agreement with the European Union, which began the updating process in April.
“We discussed the next EU-CELAC Summit, scheduled to take place in Brussels in a couple of days. The EU-CELAC relationship is very important to Chile. It benefits both regions and reaffirms multilaterism and the United Nations’ system as arenas for addressing major global challenges. We know how important those dialogues are for promoting trade, investment and technical cooperation between the regions,” she added.
Finally, President Bachelet stated, “Our relationship with France is based on political dialogue, scientific and academic cooperation, investment and culture. So, President Hollande, we hope to be able to return the warm welcome you have given us here.”