In addition to the excellent political and economic relations between the two countries, France is very keen to step up its cultural and educational links with the Kingdom.
French Information Centers called “Espaces EduFrance” (www.edufrance.fr) will be set up soon in Riyadh and Jeddah to introduce the French education system to Saudi students willing to pursue their studies abroad. These centers will advise and assist students and scholarship holders in the administrative process. They would offer an all-inclusive program providing assistance in applying for French universities, obtaining a visa and getting an accommodation. Thus, several Saudi students will have the opportunity to go soon to France to pursue postgraduate studies in the fields of medicine, engineering, business or politics among others.
Several programs with bilingual teaching (French and English) are about to be set up between Saudi and French universities to facilitate access to the most prestigious French institutions for Saudi students. They include major engineering schools such as Ecole des Mines, Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, main business schools and Paris School of political science (IEP).
The cultural and cooperation section of the French Embassy promotes scientific and technical exchanges between France and Saudi Arabia. In the field of archaeology, a Saudi-French team led by Professor Jean-Marie Dentzer, member of the French “Academie des inscriptions et belles lettres”, and Dr. Laila Nehme, an archaeologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) have been working for three years on the Meda’in Saleh Nabatean Site in the north of the Kingdom in cooperation with the Directorate of Antiquities and Museums.
This research program has produced interesting results and accordingly a comprehensive archaeological and epigraphic GIS Atlas of the site will be shortly published. The medical cooperation with Saudi Arabia is amongst the priority of France whose health system was ranked No.1 in the world by WHO (World Health Organization). Since 2001, the French SAMU and ACODESS have been working with the Saudi Red Crescent Society to improve the pre-hospital emergency medical services of the Kingdom. French experts drew the guidelines to settle the first Air Medical Services of the Kingdom. These new services, that were first implemented in Makkah region, also cater to the needs of the local population.
In Agronomy, the two main French agronomy research organizations, CIRAD and INRA are working with KACST to set up a research program aiming at fighting the red palm weevil, an insect that has been destroying palm trees plantations for 15 years. The current methods used to fight this pest seem indeed to have reached a deadlock and did not stop its spreading. The Remote Sensing Water Resources Research Program is another example of the Saudi-French research cooperation. The program between the Space Research Institute of King Abdul Aziz University for Science and Technology (KACST) and Paris VI University aims at developing new techniques to detect underground water resources using satellite photographs.
Each year, the French Embassy offers 32 French language students from King Saud University (KSU) and King Abdul Aziz Unversity (KAU) a one-month summer scholarship aiming at improving their proficiency in French. The training usually takes place at the linguistic institutes of Besançon, Dijon, Grenoble, Lyon, Pau and Perpignan Universities in France. Every year, four teachers from KSU and KAU universities receive a one-month summer grant to improve their teaching skills in a specialized French language institute such as Lyon 2 University. The French government also annually offers, one-year scholarships to the best postgraduate students from both the Saudi universities, enabling them to obtain a Masters Degree in France. The Saudi-French Center (CFS), which conducts courses in learning French as a foreign language in Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah, has recorded an attendance of thousand students last year.
Each year, the CFS grants four students one-month scholarship to improve their French. The training takes place at the linguistic institute of Lyon 2 University, in France.
The international section of the French schools are located in the principal cities of Alkhobar, Jeddah and Riyadh.
