Hollande Signs France-Cuba Cooperation Agreements

HAVANA, Cuba, May 11 (acn) The President of France, Francois Hollande, who is on an official visit to Cuba, attended on Monday the signing of cooperation agreements between French universities and research centers of the island, signed at the Main Lecture Hall of the University of Havana (UH).

Present at the ceremony were Miguel Diaz-Canel, member of the Political Bureau of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and First Vice-president of the Councils of State and Ministers, as well as Gustavo Cobreiro, member of the Central Committee of the PCC and rector of the UH.
The National Center for Scientific Research of the French Republic established its framework for cooperation with the Cuban Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA), while the UH signed agreements with the Paris-Sud and Paris 1 Universities and with the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in France.
As announced by the European head of state, these agreements are a preview of others that are expected to be concreted soon between both nations.
The Pasteur Institute and the Finlay Institute, the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) and Aviva Labs and medical universities of the two countries would be some of the institutions that would be linked soon.
Hollande recalled that the extraterritorial measures of the blockade imposed by the U.S. on Cuba have been detrimental for exchanges between French and Cuban institutions of higher studies, but they have not stopped them, because it is possible to hold back the exchange of goods, but not ideas.
Therefore, we will continue strengthening cooperation, seeking that joint thesis in subjects like science, agronomy, physics and environmental management, especially research at masters and doctoral level can develop, he added.
We are working on the mutual recognition of our university certificates; today, only 150 Cuban students are taking postgraduate courses in France; we'll try to increase that figure in the future, he stressed.
The program of the first French President to visit the island included a lecture at the Main Lecture Hall and the opening of the new headquarters of the French Alliance in Havana, an institution with more than 12,000 students.