The French Institute of Tunisia, in the heart of the city, pulses with its energy.

Resource place, cultural center and exchange platform.

At the crossroads of Tunisian and French cultures, it offers a space for dialogue and discovery to everyone.

The French Institute of Tunisia is the tool allowing the reception of the public around many aspects of the cooperation between France and Tunisia: educational and linguistic, academic, scientific, cultural and audiovisual cooperation.

The team implements a program there in conjunction with Tunisian partners in all sectors of activity, from the debate of ideas to performing arts, including cinema, books and reading.

It is a multidisciplinary place:

• which opens spaces for reflection and exchanges with civil societies on all major societal issues;
• which offers a  state-of-the-art media library  with all the new digital tools;
• which has a  Language Center  welcoming more than 12,000 learners each year as well as a Campus France-Tunisia space which advises and supports the mobility of Tunisian students in France;
• which has a  cinema  and a  restaurant, Bistrot Le Carnot;
• which hosts the teams of the Agency for French Education Abroad ( AEFE ) in charge of monitoring French education in Tunisia.

The French Institute of Tunisia is also a presence in the region in Sousse and Sfax in two spaces bringing together all the activities available in Tunis, as well as in 13 language centers providing French lessons in the territory.

ASSIGNMENTS

The French Institute of Tunisia supports and implements the strategy and missions of the cooperation and cultural action department of the French Embassy in accordance with the spirit of partnership that governs relations between France and Tunisia. As such, it finances, initiates, conducts and supports a set of actions and projects covering many areas: university, scientific, linguistic, educational, cultural, technical or institutional cooperation.

In this period of democratic transition, the action of the French Institute of Tunisia revolves around five strategic objectives:

• develop links between Tunisian and French civil societies;
• support the democratic process and the strengthening of the rule of law, support decentralization;
• develop cultural exchanges between France and Tunisia;
• promote the French language;
• contribute to training, employment and the economic and social development of Tunisia.

To carry out its strategy, the French Institute of Tunisia mobilizes human and financial resources according to an annual program which deploys transversal actions and means of intervention as diverse as the organization of events and demonstrations, financing and support for projects or initiatives, technical assistance, transfer of expertise, training programs, scholarships and mobility assistance, institutional partnerships.

A LITTLE HISTORY...

Inaugurated in 1882 under the name of Saint-Charles College, the building was built by the architect Étienne-Marius Arnoux, on the model of the French high schools of the end of the 19th century.

Ceded to the French administration by the clergy in 1889, it became Sadiki high school, in homage to Sadok Bey, then Sadi Carnot high school in 1894, in memory of the assassinated French President.

The building has known dark times, since it was occupied by the German army during the Second World War, before being taken over by the Allies, who installed their administration there.

After several expansions and the construction of annexes in Mutuelleville, La Marsa, Carthage, to meet the growing demand of French and Tunisian families, the French high school becomes the property of the Tunisian State and takes the name of Habib Bourguiba high school, one of the first pilot high schools of excellence in Tunisia.

The cultural center project at Lycée Carnot, which welcomed its last French students in 1983, was born in 1987, when the current Lycée Habib Bourguiba was handed over to the Tunisian State, which ended in 1995.

The French State then wishes to centralize in these buildings, which remain unused, its cultural cooperation services. Several projects followed one another before the start of the current project, under the presidencies of François Mitterand then Jacques Chirac.

Today, the associations of former students, in Tunis and Paris, contribute to preserving and transmitting the memory of the places, and regularly organize meetings. Jellal Ben Abdallah, Gilbert Naccache, Philippe Séguin, Serge Moati or Gisèle Halimi, are for example, former students of the Lycée Carnot...

CONNECTED TO THE WORLD

The French Institute of Tunisia is a member of a network of 96 French Institutes and more than 800 Alliances Françaises. As such, it is in close contact with the French Institute-Paris ( IF ) and the  Alliances Françaises Foundation . Its action falls within the scope of French cultural diplomacy and it is part of the French Embassy . It is connected to the network of Alliances françaises de Tunisie whose development on a national scale, on the territory, in 2018 is at the heart of the Embassy's project for a renewed Francophonie in the country.