The French ambassador and representative of the European Union in Chile, Pascal Texeira Da Silva, arrived in October 2021 and recently visited the University of Los Lagos as part of the tour of the country that French diplomats usually make when they settle in a new destination.
Together with representatives of French institutions in the region – the consulate, the Alliance Française Cultural Corporation, and the Claude Gay French High School – the ambassador gave a lecture to almost 200 ULagos students and academics.
At the event, he held the “telluric” changes in global geopolitics given by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, explaining the position of the European Union and France in the management of this conflict “We have been, are, and will be neighbors of Russia and Ukraine, so our efforts are focused on a ceasefire and the recovery of peaceful coexistence between sovereign states” he said to the audience who participated actively through questions and comments, engaging in a dialogue with the diplomatic authority.
By taking advantage of the representative’s visit, the ULagos signed a collaboration agreement with the Corporación Cultural Alianza Francesa in Osorno that contemplates mutually beneficial actions for both institutions. The executive director of the AF Corporation, Christine Matos, explained “The agreement resumes what had been done before the pandemic, it is extended to provide French classes to undergraduate and postgraduate students starting with the first levels and generating benefits for members of the ULagos Community who want to continue learning the language until they reach and certify appropriate levels to enter French universities. These benefits will be extended to graduates and certificated. We also offer our installations at 1512 Mackenna Street for academic, postgraduate, or cultural activities”.
For his part, Ambassador Texeira Da Silva from a global perspective held the importance of university cooperation for trade relations between countries and the success of large investments such as those being made in clean energy. “We have several university and scientific cooperation agreements between French and Chilean universities. The problem we have had during the pandemic is the difficulty in organizing the mobility of students and researchers and we trust when the restrictions come to an end, we can return to more normal exchanges; to pre-pandemic levels.”
The ambassador explained the transversal reasons for this rapprochement between universities in both countries: “There is a kind of recurrent between university and research cooperation and economic relations. What we want to do to complement the very important French investments in renewable and clean energies such as green hydrogen, is going to need many experts and specialists for the construction and operation of the plants and that is why professional training and specialization must be a component of this aspect of economic cooperation.”
Emphasizing the subject matter of the agreement signed during the previous talk ceremony and the new language learning opportunities for members of the ULagos community, he said “The problem we may find is linguistic, that should not be an impossible obstacle, for a Spanish speaker it is not so complicated to learn French, we have a lot of French Alliances in Chile, one in Osorno, whose reason for being is the teaching of the French language.”
During the signing ceremony and discussion, various authorities were present, such as Pablo Saint Jean, honorary consul of France in Chile, the director of the French Lycée, Saïd Argaz, and members of the commission of directors of the Corporation, as well as the ULagos prorector, Roberto Jaramillo and the director of International Relations, Rodrigo Márquez, who presented a significant gift to the ambassador to seal the friendly and cooperative relationship between ULagos and the French state through its French embassy.
According to Rector Óscar Garrido, the establishment of international diplomatic relations in the area of university education and research also responds to an objective of Chilean universities: “State universities, within the framework of quality guarantee, must seek strategies that allow harmonious and proportional relations between universities in different parts of the world, taking into account that student mobility at the undergraduate, postgraduate, and research levels is fundamental. Therefore, the possibility of having events such as the one we had this week with the French ambassador, seeks to better understand how to establish these alliances. The University has, within the framework of its new accreditation, a determined path to move towards internationalization, not only as a via that allows us to strengthen inter-university capacities but also to open the conditions so that our students and academics can share part of their knowledge structure and receive a new one. It was a good day and we will continue with an open agenda to work on topics in the Americas, in Europe, Asia, and in different areas of the discipline and research development”.
