130 years of relations: French ambassador to Bulgaria highlights France's key role in supporting Bulgarian freedom.

It's striking how France has played a recurring role in helping Bulgaria overcome oppression. Whether revealing Bulgaria's enslavement to the outside world, coaxing dissenters to stand up to tyranny or helping to reverse injustice, France has proved a trusted ally--even before the official opening of Franco-Bulgarian ties.

In the 19th century, for example, French poet Alphonse de Lamartine helped to expose Bulgaria's plight--under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire--to the rest of Europe. In the dying days of communist rule, an incumbent French president's meetings with dissidents fanned intellectual resistance against dictatorship. And, recently, French intervention played a great role in the fact that the Bulgarian nurses in Libya were able to come home.

And if all this sounds impossibly romantic, remember that the Gallic presence in Bulgaria is evident on many levels. Just look at the influence of French fashions (notice the ubiquity of the black beret in the countryside) and literature and, perhaps most of all, the infiltration of French words into the Bulgarian language. During the Revival Period, a time when Bulgaria compensated for its long oppression by importing outside influences, many Bulgarians travelled to France, believing it--naturellement--to be the epitome of style. Hence, today, so many French words are adopted into Bulgarian.

French education, education, education

The French ambassador in Sofia, Etienne de Poncins, a tall and dignified figure with patrician features, is immensely proud of his country's contribution to Bulgaria. And, appropriately, with three children aged 16, 14 and 12, the virtues of French education are uppermost in his mind.

"We are lucky enough to have a French lycee in Bulgaria that follows the French curriculum. Half the pupils are Bulgarian, a quarter are French and the other quarter come from different countries," says 45-year-old De Poncins. "We are currently working to promote the French language. We have 11 000 students at 57 bilingual schools throughout Bulgaria and so there is a strong francophone influence. Ivailo Kalfin, for example, (Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister) attended a bilingual school."

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Sitting in the elegant lounge of the French embassy on Oborishte Street, De Poncins reflects on his two years as ambassador. The high point of his tenure so far was the nurses' release in which France played an important role. "I was at the airport to see the French plane returning and it was a very satisfying and joyous experience."

Does he feel that the medics have been shabbily treated since?

"It's not my responsibility to say either way. They are strong people; after all, they were imprisoned for eight years, the first five of which they were quite abandoned. It was only in the last two or three years that people took an interest in them. But every year, on the anniversary of their release, we have lunch."

Breakthrough at breakfast

De Poncins recalls the role of France's former president Francois Mitterrand (1916-1996) in Bulgaria. Mitterrand used to visit former communist countries and have 'breakfasts' with dissidents. He was the first French president to visit Bulgaria. Until then the only political contacts had come from French firebrand Georges Marchais whose communist party was one of Europe's strongest in the 1970s.

It was in January 1989 that 12 of the best-known Bulgarian intellectuals, opposing the regime of Todor Zhivkov, met Mitterrand for informal talks. In addition to the breakfast, the visit included a lecture for college students in Sofia, a tour of the French Language High School in the capital and a trip to Plovdiv. The lecture was probably the first "free dialogue" in Bulgaria in 45 years of communist rule. Instead of asking questions fed to them in advance by the authorities, the students decided to ask their own ones, riling State Security employees in the process.

The living participants at the breakfast, including artist Svetlin Russev, Bulgaria's first democratically elected president, Zhelyu Zhelev, and former academic then viceprime minister, minister of education and science Nikolai Vassilev, all attended a faithful 20th anniversary recreation of the event in January. In addition to the French ambassador and diplomats, the French side was represented by Mitterrand's foreign minister at the time, Roland Dumas, now 85.

De Poncins believes that Mitterrand played a pivotal role in opening Bulgaria up.

"In 1989 the Zhivkov regime was (apparently) still strong, so the fact that Mitterrand was able to hold these breakfasts with dissidents and independent intellectuals was seen as a signal that the regime was not so powerful after all. Mitterrand stayed in the house where French poet Lamartine had stayed. Lamartine spent three months in Bulgaria, a country that was an unknown quantity in the middle of the 19th century. When he returned to France he wrote very positive essays about the Bulgarian people in which he pondered their eventual liberation."

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Mitterrand is not the only French president to take an interest in Bulgaria. A signed photograph of Valery Giscard D'Estaing, French president from 1974 to 1981, adorns the library in the residence's lounge. Giscard has visited Bulgaria twice. De Poncins was an adviser to Giscard at the European convention.

"Due to his high profile, I can't say he's a friend but I'm quite close to him and I invited him to last year's Franco-German conference here in Bulgaria. It was his first visit to Bulgaria at the age of 82. He came back earlier this year after an invitation by Nadezhda Mihailova (former foreign minister in Ivan Kostov's administration). He calls me from time to time and he's now very informed about Bulgaria and its politics."

Judicial flaws

Not that de Poncins' secondment has been all smooth. Earlier this year there were ripples when a Bulgarian court acquitted two individuals accused of the murder of Bulgarian law student Martin Borilski in Paris. De Poncins found the original judgment "bizarre" but is pleased to now have redress in the form of the reopening of the case and the setting up of a parallel process in France.

The ambassador admits that flaws still exist in the Bulgarian criminal justice system but he won't be drawn on whether Bulgaria's entry to the European Union was premature. "It's a pointless exercise to discuss that. They're in the EU and we should all work to make it a success. If it doesn't work it would have a bad effect on new enlargement--on countries like Croatia and Serbia--so it's much better to have Bulgaria in and work hard to fill the gap."

De Poncins admits that trade links between the two countries are not as plentiful as he would like. "France is the 13th investor in Bulgaria. Romania, not Bulgaria, is the primary destination for French capital. But I'm optimistic because until now there was no setback due to the economic crisis. On the contrary, the flow is continuing with companies like Carrefour arriving. We also have a French factory, so there is no bad effect from the crisis."

A total of 150 000 French tourists visit every year, boosted by Air France's decision to provide two daily flights between Sofia and Paris. "French tourists tend to be more intellectual. They want to travel, to visit places such as Plovdiv (the ambassador's favourite city in Bulgaria), Rila and Veliko Turnovo," he says. "It's not just about sitting on the beach for them but exploring the country".

The ambassador recalls how his first impressions of Bulgaria centred on the "fascinating mix between Slavic and Mediterranean influences". No doubt other visitors are waiting to discover the same thing.

* Celebrations planned for France's National Day--July 14--involve well-appreciated festivities in Varna and a large reception for up to 1200 people at the French embassy's party in Sofia.