MORE than 500 people gathered in the gilded salons of the French Foreign Affairs Ministry in Pans yesterday for the official launch of "L'Imaginaire Irlandais", the six month festival of contemporary Irish culture which will take, place throughout France this year.
Presented by the Minister for Arts and Culture, Mr Higgins, said the French Foreign Affair Minister, Mr Herve de Charette, the press conference was the long awaited send off for one of the most extensive national culture festivals seen in France.
Mr Higgins said he hoped the festival would consolidate friendship between the people of Ireland and France and "that through it we can convey to you a new awareness of our people as the beneficiaries of memory, not the victims, and as dynamic and innovative, looking with confidence to the future".
Mr de Charette, who revealed that he had an Irish great grandmother, said it was part of the "Irish magic" that there was "a real movement of sympathy, opening up, appetite and discovery for L'Imaginaire Irlandais".
He added that he hoped the forthcoming Irish presidency of the European Union would put cultural co operation at the heart of its action.
While most of the Imaginaire's highlights take place in Paris between March and August, about 50 towns throughout France will be participating in the festival, bringing in some 600 Irish artists, writers and designers.
The total cost, shared equally by Ireland and France, is around £3 million.
The real boost will come around St Patrick's Day, when Irish writers present their work in the French Academy and at the Rond Point Theatre in Paris, and Seamus Heaney attends the Paris Book Fair.