Debate: „Migrer dans la Francophonie actuelle“ with participation of 4 francophone ambassadors took place at VŠE

Last Friday there took place a debate „Migrer dans la Francophonie actuelle” at VŠE, organized by the Department of Romane Languages. Our invitation accepted J.E. Grégoire VARDAKIS, ambassador of the Kingdom of Belgium in the Czech Republic, J.E. Roland GALHARAGUE, ambassador of France in the Czech Republic, Abdeslam MALEH, chargé d’affaires a.i. from embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco in the Czech Republic and J.E. Karima BARDAOUI, ambassador of the Republic of Tunisia in the Czech Republic. We welcomed in the audience J.E. Alda AMATIHO, ambassador of Italy in the Czech Republic.

The event was going on in French and was introduced by the rector of VŠE, prof. Ing. Hana Machková, CSc. More than one hundred students received a valuable opportunity to meet with four francophone ambassadors at the same time, learn from them a lot of information about migration from the point of view of all four countries and ask them in French several questions in the field of this still present topic.

The debate, successfully moderated by our 3 students, was divided into three main thematic areas: the current situation in all four countries (amount and origin of applicants of asylum, asylum management, questions about integration), cooperation with the European union from the perspective of France and Belgium as EU member states and on the other hand from the perspective of Morocco and Tunisia as the third countries, ambassadors’ personal vision of future. All four participants of the debate managed to set this so complicated topic into wider (even into outside European) context, they warned against populism and they appealed students to critical attitude towards information.

A big part of the attending students from the third year of the Bachelor study was prepared for this meeting thanks to the stimulation of the debate by roundtable, which took place in December in the course 2RO301 (besides other things focusing on French in international relations) and where they had the opportunity to play a role of not only high representative politicians but also of journalist debating about this topic.

Thank you for your attendance and a big interest in our event. At the next lecture within the cycle of meeting with francophone ambassadors we should look more into Belgium – the date will be particularized.

Kateřina Dvořáková, Department of Romane Languages