France sees strong desire for good ties with Pakistan after ‘difficult period’

French Ambassador to Pakistan Nicolas Galey said on Saturday that everybody desires the restoration of good ties between France and Pakistan after a “difficult period”.

Speaking at an event at the Quaid-e-Azam House Museum, also known as Flagstaff House, in Karachi, he said everybody he had talked with after his arrival in Pakistan wanted to “turn the page”.

The envoy, who is visiting the port city for the first time since his appointment earlier this year, said Karachi was a fascinating, active and vibrant city that didn’t disappoint him at all. He recalled France was the first non-Muslim country to establish diplomatic ties with Pakistan and expressed his keen desire to visit the old French embassy building that was in Karachi.

“Normal relations between Pakistan and France mean good relations and even more than that. I as the ambassador in Islamabad and my colleague, consul general in Karachi, are very keen on continuing to restore good relations. It was also demonstrated by the recent meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and French President Emmanuel Macron in New York,” he maintained, pointing out that a joint statement was also put out at the end of this meeting, which called for organising a donor conference to help Pakistan cope with the aftermath of the terrible floods.

The French diplomat said the conference would be an expression of concrete solidarity by the people of France since we are still in the emergency phase of an international response to the calamity.

Apart from humanitarian assistance, he added France has also joined many global appeals, mostly from the United Nations and European Union, to help Pakistan in difficult times.

“After I arrived here months ago, there were good reasons to try and identify fields of cooperation and improvement in ties between Pakistan and France and I found very responsive and positive approach from all interlocutors,” Galey said. “There is this particular economic sector in which we have a lot to do and the two countries can also have very good cooperation in the agriculture and dairy sectors.”

He said France’s relations with Pakistan are both bilateral and “Euro-Pakistani” as trade ties between European member states and third states are regulated from Brussels, adding that Paris supported Pakistan’s efforts to secure the GSP Plus status. He stressed that Pakistan’s ties with any member state of the European Union should also be seen through a prism of its relations with Brussels where the EU is headquartered.

The envoy said the number of Pakistani students studying in France had come down to 200 per year, which was three times less than the number of students going to Sweden. “When we compare ourselves with Germany, a non-English speaking country, we realise that Germans welcome more than 4,000 students every year,” he said, stressing the need for both sides to make Pakistan better known to French universities.

He said teams of five universities would visit Pakistan in early November to meet officials here so they could discuss the curriculum that matches the needs of Pakistani students and they were also in close contact with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to address other issues in this regard.

In his welcome address, Liaquat Merchant, senior vice chairman of the museum’s Board of Management, shed light on the background of the historical building.

“The property was purchased by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1943 and intended to be his personal residence. After he passed away, his sister, Fatima Jinnah, was allowed to live in the house,” he said.

“Later, the property was sold to the federal government by the administrators of the estate of Jinnah and became the provincial government’s property after the 18th Amendment.”

Under an MoU, Merchant said the building’s management was given to the Jinnah Society and the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations and it was now being looked after by the board. He said the building was being used to hold programmes aimed at promoting the principles and vision of the father of the nation.

In his concluding remarks, Ikram Sehgal, the board’s vice chairman, said that one of the major flaws in Pakistan’s foreign and economic policies was that they never took into account and exploited the French influence that existed in many parts of Africa to the country’s advantage. Pakistan could have collaborated with French companies working in Africa to learn from their expertise, he said.

Commending France’s humanitarian aid for Sindh’s flood-affected people, Sehgal sought the country’s help, especially provision of expertise, to build an underground auditorium, a library and an audio-visual centre behind the building.