French Ambassador to Kuwait Marie Masdupuy

KUWAIT: After nearly a year in the office, the French Ambassador to Kuwait gathered local media on Sunday to discuss her mission to Kuwait and her stint as her country's envoy. Marie Masdupuy said French and Kuwaiti political relations are deeply-rooted, strong and reputable, as meetings between the two peoples continue regularly.

"Dialogue with Kuwaitis is easy since it is based on mutual respect and genuine friendship. We are happy to see eye-to-eye and we respect each other's views on both regional and global issues," she said. "We have institutional political consultations at the level of foreign ministries, and at the level of respective directors. We have parliamentary visits and exchanges of expertise; the last one was a few months ago by the Kuwaiti side. The next scheduled visit will be early next year. The program, headed by the head of the legislative committee, was intense, and visitors were happy about the result of their visit and they want to make more such visits," she said.

In early December this year, according to Masdupuy, a delegation from the French national assembly will reciprocate the visit, while France is preparing for the visit of the Kuwait National Assembly speaker sometime in 2019. She said France has revived cooperation between the French school in Kuwait and the Kuwait Institute for Legal Studies, signing a memorandum of agreement in Paris, under which there will be exchanges of judicial education for lawyers and judges. "It is an educational exchange agreement for training lawyers and judges. The agreement covers sharing expertise, since Kuwaitis are very familiar with French law. It's a very interesting program and I think it's very important for the two countries to really cooperate in this area of expertise," she said.

On healthcare, Masdupuy mentioned her country's cooperation agreement with Dasman Diabetes Institute and the French company Sanofi Pasture, which was signed to help Kuwait in the prevention and treatment of childhood diabetes. She said during the marking of diabetes month in November, they are expected to sign a bigger cooperation deal in same field, but this time with the ministry of health in Kuwait. "We are preparing the same memorandum between the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Kuwait and its French counterpart," she said.

In the defense and security field, Masdupuy said a military exercise 'Pearl of the West' with the French Army and its Kuwaiti counterpart will be held in Kuwait in November. "This military exercise takes place every four years. If you see some movements of military vehicles, trucks and personnel, probably some of those are French military men and equipment from France. This military exercise will be joined by thousands of Kuwaiti and French military personnel. They are now arriving here for the exercises," she said. The French defense minister will be in Kuwait in December or a few weeks after the military training, the envoy said.

On commercial and economic cooperation, Masdupuy said Kuwait and France have trade of over $1 billion between them, and it's thriving. "There are a lot of exchanges of products on both sides. We were the first European country to sign a foreign direct investment deal with Kuwait. There are exchanges not only in oil, but lot of other products. Investments from Kuwait and vice versa are thriving and discussions with companies are ongoing," she said.

By Ben Garcia