French Language and Culture Days opened in the southern city of Split on Tuesday.

Vanda Miksic, President Zoran Milanovic’s envoy for the Francophonie, said that this event is important for cultural reasons because “it enables us to see how others, in this case the French, create their culture.”

The Francophonie is a group of 88 countries that share French as a common language. “Their common goal is to promote the French language and resist efforts for primarily English to be taught as a foreign language. They offer an alternative to foreign language learning by promoting the possibility of learning other languages, namely French,” Miksic said.

Benoît Le Devedec, French language attaché at the French embassy in Zagreb, thanked the Prokultura culture association and its leader Nansi Ivanisevic for traditionally organising this event in Split, saying that it contributes to the popularity of the French language in the world.

A selection of short stories by 20 contemporary authors who come from former French colonies and write in French was presented. The book was compiled by Mirna Sindicic-Sabljo and Vanda Miksic as an important contribution towards Croatians getting to know the Francophonie.

Sindicic-Sabljo noted that 320 million people in the world speak French and that French-speaking countries have a huge production of literature by interesting authors who are currently little known among Croatian audiences.