Taiwan and France have close and longstanding ties in areas like education, culture, food and science & technology. Stephany Yang sits down with France”s representative in Taipei, who talks fine wines, student exchanges, and the future of Taiwan-France collaborations.
Every year, 7 million people visit the Eiffel Tower, making it one of the world’s most popular monuments. Other than its historical architecture, France is also famous for its wines.
Jean-Francois Casabonne-Masonnave
French Office in Taipei director
French wine it”s a very long history, which started in Middle Ages and even before during the Roman times.
French Office in Taipei director Jean-Francois Casabonne-Masonnave says what makes French wine unique is its long history, as well as France’s terrain. There are also strict rules governing wine production.
Jean-Francois Casabonne-Masonnave
French Office in Taipei director
I am a lawyer at the beginning. A good law is based on reality. It cannot be forced something which is against the population or the tradition. As I described before, the tradition of wine is very important and very ancient and then it came the law to organize it, to protect it. To make that every region has its own way to prepare its wine.
In Taiwan, the French Office works with local partners to promote France’s fine wines. Recently it co-organized a wine tasting to connect French wine producers with Taiwan professionals.
Jean-Francois Casabonne-Masonnave
French Office in Taipei director
Even with COVID-19 pandemic, it”s more complicated. But still, we can organize a meeting to help local traders who can reach consumers here to discover new French wines or maybe anceint that they don”t know already. To make them connect with each other.
Over the past few years, Taiwan and France have maintained close ties in areas such as human rights, culture, science, technology, and food. Casabonne-Masonnave says that education is a priority for French-Taiwan collaboration in the near future.
Jean-Francois Casabonne-Masonnave
French Office in Taipei director
One of our big priorities is to have more French students coming here to Taiwan to study and Taiwanese to come to France and study as well. We try to have more engineers and more scientists because France has an old tradition in sciences and in technology and innovation today in startups. I think beautiful connections can be created between the know-how here in Taiwan, which is very strong and very efficient, and the creativity we have in France. For that, we need more people to connect with each other, young people. So the priority is to have more Taiwanese students, scientists, engineers coming spend some time in France, and more French scientists and engineers coming here to Taiwan.
This December, Taiwan’s foreign ministry plans to open a new office in Aix-en-Provence. Casabonne-Masonnave says Aix-en-Provence offers rich opportunities for advancing bilateral ties in sectors like tourism, technology, and even opera.
Jean-Francois Casabonne-Masonnave
French Office in Taipei director
I would be very happy to see cooperation in the field of opera because Aix-en-Provence is known for its festival of opera. Maybe there could be a connection between French singers and Taiwanese opera singers.
Casabonne-Masonnave has served as the French Office in Taipei director since 2019. He said the French Office in Taipei will be moving to a new location in Taipei 101 by next March, where it will continue with exciting projects to promote the bilateral relationship.