French CG highlights academic cooperation with the Kurdistan Region, Iraq

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The French Consul General on Monday emphasized France’s efforts to strengthen academic ties and expand student exchange programs with the Kurdistan Region, during the inauguration of the Region’s first “French Corner”.

The French embassy in Baghdad and the French consulate general in Erbil inaugurated the first French Corner in the Kurdistan Region on Monday at the University of Kurdistan Hewler (UKH).

France’s Consul General Yann Braem emphasized the importance of the initiative in building ties and providing student exchange programs.

“It is very important to develop these ties for scientific exchanges for student exchanges,” Braem told Rudaw’s Dilnya Rahman, adding that it was the first branch of French Corner opened in the Kurdistan Region.

He noted the consulate’s “very good” collaboration with UKH and their active exchange programs with French universities across various fields of study. 

“We are really willing to increase these efforts to increase these exchanges and to make sure that our universities are cooperating together,” Braem said, adding that their programs encompass all Iraqi provinces.

In September, the French Embassy in Iraq opened a branch of the French Corner in Anabr University.

“We are contributing to what the young people will make out of this world,” Braem said, adding that the two sides have many common challenges to tackle.

The French consul also noted that French schools in the Kurdistan Region prepare students for higher education in France, equipping them with the necessary linguistic skills. 

“There is a continuity between the efforts that we are providing for the French school…[and] these programs we have,” he said.

In May, Braem told Rudaw that his country’s investment in the Kurdistan Region amounts to $3 billion in various sectors with dozens of French businesses working in the Region. 

The relationship between the Kurds and France goes back to the 1980s. Danielle Mitterrand, first lady of France from 1981 to 1995, advocated for Kurds suffering under the regime of Saddam Hussein and was instrumental in campaigning for the no-fly zone that allowed the Kurdistan Region to develop its current autonomy. She was affectionately known as the “Mother of Kurds”, and inaugurated the first Kurdish parliament in 1992.

France was one of the first countries to open a consulate in the Kurdish capital of Erbil after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 and played a critical role in helping Kurds both in Iraq and in Syria in the war against the Islamic State (ISIS).