Consul general of France in Miami to visit UF on Friday

February 10, 2010

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Gaël de Maisonneuve, consul general of France in Miami, will visit the University of Florida on Thursday and Friday.

He is coming here as the guest of the France-Florida Research Institute and the French and Francophone Studies program in the department of languages, literatures and cultures in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

While at UF, de Maisonneuve will speak French while addressing French students and faculty and respond to their questions on current French political issues. The session will take place from 3 to 4 p.m. Thursday in the McQuown Room, 219 Dauer Hall. He will also tour the Project Europa exhibit with Rebecca Nagy, director of the Harn Museum of Art, and Kerry Oliver-Smith, curator of contemporary art and organizer of the show where the work of several French artists is featured. The French foundation Etant donnés and the France-Florida Research Institute are among the sponsors of the event.

The talk is free and open to the public.

A graduate of the Institute of Political Science in Paris, and also the ESSEC Business School, de Maisonneuve has worked at the Cultural Affairs bureau of the French Embassy in the Republic of Singapore, as second secretary to the French Embassy in Tokyo, and as deputy ambassador of France in Sri Lanka. From 2005 until his appointment to the Miami Consulate in 2009, he worked on budget and administrative reform in the general division for political and security affairs at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs in Paris and then as adviser on Asia to Bernard Kouchner, France’s foreign minister.

Please contact Carol J. Murphy, director of the France-Florida Research Institute for more information.