Aysor, Armenia
March 20 2010

International Francophonie Days

Today all over the world in the frameworks of the UNO program on
supporting and developing the cultural and linguistic diversity is
celebrated the international day of Francophonie. The program is aimed
at encouraging the equality of English, French, Russian, Spanish,
Chinese and Arabic languages.

The decision on celebrating the day of Francophonie on March 20 was
made by the public relations and information department of the UNO.
The UNO has always kept under its attention the equality of its 6
official languages. There have been organized many events on this
matter since 1946. For this reason they have recognized the 23rd of
April the day of English, March 20 the day of French, June 6 Russian
day, October 12 Spanish day and December 18 day of Arabic. The day of
Chinese has not been confirmed yet.

It was in 1970 on March 20 when in the capital city of Niger was
signed a memorandum according to which was formed the first
intergovernmental organization of Francophonie countries. Today the
international organization unites 54 states and 14 observers which
make around 803, 44 million people of which 200 million speak in
French.

Armenia became a member of the Francophonie international organization
since 2008. According to the statistics there are around 200 thousand
people in our country that know French and there are about 82 thousand
pupils who learn French at schools.

In the frameworks of the Francophonie days the Armenian and foreign
singers will give a gala-concert, there will also be tens of events
which will present the cultural diversities of Frence, Belgium,
Canada, Rumania, Switzerland and other Francophonie countries.