The Repolitization of Francophonie from 1980 to 2005

The presentation is a part of a course given in French (French II for students who already have 30 credits in French) on the francophone world. It underlines the distinction between the French-speaking populations and the geocultural project linked to the French language. The presentation focuses on the development of the Francophonie organization between 1980 and 2005. The idea is that this organization imitates more and more the United Nations. Its first international summit was held in 1986 in Versailles and then in 1997, the summit of Hanoi presented a chart of fundamental values and elected a political secretary for the organization. The first political secretary was Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former general secretary of the United Nations. The current organization was the result of a reshuffle of the organization in 2005 (creation of the International Organization of Francophonie that unifies the two existing agencies, the ACCT (cultural cooperation) and the AIF (Agence Internationale de la Francophonie).