A French association in Taipei yesterday said it will hold a carnival tomorrow to celebrate France’s National Day and invited the public to join in the fun.
French National Day, also called Bastille Day, commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris on July 14, 1789.
The celebration will feature a wide range of family activities and live performances by magicians, acrobats, belly dancers and a band, said Dominique Levy, an official from the Association of French in Taiwan (AFT).
Levy said the event has been held annually for the past five years and that the purpose is to provide a social forum for Taiwanese who want to learn more about French culture or meet new friends.
There is something for everyone, Levy said, adding that for gastronomes, famous French delicacies such as crepes, as well as French beverages, would be available.
About 1,000 people of various nationalities attended the party last year and about 200 tickets had already been sold for this year’s event, he said.
The event, co-organized by Alliance Francaise in Taiwan, will take place at National Taipei University of Technology from 4pm until midnight.
Meanwhile, an annual Taiwan Culture Day event was held in the French Senate on Tuesday. A six-minute promotional film on Taiwan, titled Taiwan — Where the Mountains Meet the Sea, and another 15-minute documentary marking the Republic of China centennial, were shown during the event.
Monique Papon, a vice president of the Senate and chairwoman of the Senate’s -Taiwan France Friendship Group, said she first saw the film during her last visit to Taiwan.
She said the film was a very well-produced work and it allowed people who have been to Taiwan to relive their memories and gave those who had never been to the country a general impression of Taiwan.
Papon also said she hopes the film will help encourage French senators to visit the country.
Representative to France Michel Lu (呂慶龍) said Taiwan’s “soft power” was highly regarded in France.
Every French parliamentarian who has visited Taiwan has become an advocate of the country and their positive comments have helped boost interest in the country, Lu said.
The activity drew nearly 120 participants, including 17 senators across party lines.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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