French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault historic visit to Cebu

CEBU, Philippines - Very rare are the occasions when a visiting head of state comes to Cebu; usually their official trip to this country begins and ends in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. So when I heard that the French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and a delegation of French officials and businessmen would be come to Cebu for the inauguration of the Alliance Française de Cebu, this was on occasion that I could not afford, excusez-moi, to miss.

The red-letter day was Sunday, October 21, 2012 at 12:15 p.m. and the invitation came with instruction to come an hour in advance for security checks. I followed the order faithfully and met Honorary Consul of Spain Jaime Picornell and wife Cecilia who also came on the dot.

I did some research on the life of the French Prime Minister and learned that he studied German in Nantes University, receiving a graduate teaching diploma and worked as a German language teacher. In 1976, he was elected to the General Council and "he subsequently became Mayor of Saint-Herblain, located in the western suburbs of Nantes, in 1977". He was the Mayor of Nantes from March 1989 to June 2012 and later was appointed as Prime Minister of France.

There are two reasons for his visit to Cebu: a briefing on the

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) because the project will be jointly financed by Agence Francaise de Development (US$52 million), World Bank ($110 million), Clean Technology Fund ($25 million) and the Philippine government ($25 million).

The second reason were reports that French culture is booming in Cebu through the efforts of a Filipino of French ancestry, Michel Lhuillier. Michel was born in French Indochina and he single-handedly moved to established "Petite France" in Cebu, first by organizing the Les Amis de la France and later, sponsoring Alliance Française de Cebu, a Filipino association of Francophile men and women. True, there were some efforts in the past to promote French culture here but to sponsor any activity or make an organization succeed, you need vast financial resources to achieve your objective.

In the past, I wrote that when you talk of culture, you talk about history, language, music, people, food and drinks. The latter two subjects are my field of interest, as a member of a French gourmet society, La Chaine des Rotissuers and as a food journalist.

It was a cocktail reception during the inauguration of the Alliance Française de Cebu and some of the dishes and wines served during the festivities are featured here. We had Tartelette Poire & Roquefort, Capuccinio de Carottes, Mojito de Crevette a la Mangue, Madeleine de Queue de Boeuf, Croquettes pied de cochon miel basilica and a Cebuano dish, the Kinilaw Duo.

Nearly everybody spoke French and inaugural address of the French Prime Minister was in French and I felt miserable that though I had opportunities in the past to study the French language, I failed to do so. But I did observe the facial expressions and the body language of the Jean-Marc Ayrault and Brigitte Ayrault that in the midst of a French Language Center in Cebu, eating French food, drinking French wine and conversing in the French language, the couple must have thought they were still in France. (FREEMAN)