President Zurabishvili Back in Sciences Po Paris School in France

“Georgia is by itself a demonstration that everything is possible” Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili said at the beginning of her speech.

During her first official visit to France, Zurabishvili went to the Paris School of International Affairs to give a lecture on Georgia. Zurabishvili’s visit was quite an event since she was once both a student and an associate professor at Sciences Po, teaching classes on the European Union there for 9 years.

President Zurabishvili addressed a variety of subjects, including her history as a Georgian child living in France: “Raised as an immigrant family child [in France], I would never have dreamed of what happened”. She explained that without planning to become president, she had always wanted to make a difference in Georgia: “I had one dream, it was to serve this country whenever it became independent”.

She went back over the difficult history of occupation of Georgia and of its current challenges, arguing that “for Georgia, its culture is what makes its survival possible”. She emphasized the deep sense of Georgian identity, of its own values and of its own culture. She mentioned the 2008 war with Russia, and the remaining occupied territories: “We have to stay calm because we know where we are going”. She also emphasized the need to create links with its neighboring countries and to find a balance in a very unpredictable region.

President Zurabishvili then talked about the European family and Georgia’s feeling of belonging to it. She said that Georgia would continue its efforts to become part of the European Union. Despite the current crisis happening with Brexit and the rise of populism, she believes that Georgian integration is possible and that integrations in the Union often happened in times of crisis.

By Gabrielle Colchen  

Photo Source: Le Parisien

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