According to VNA, on October 7 local time (early morning of October 8, Hanoi time), General Secretary and President To Lam and the high-ranking Vietnamese delegation left Orly Airport, Paris, to return home, successfully concluding activities within the framework of the 19th Francophone Summit and paying an official visit to the French Republic from October 3 to October 7, at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Seeing off the delegation at the airport on the French side were: Leaders of the Orly region; representatives of the Protocol Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France. On the Vietnamese side were Vietnamese Ambassador to France Dinh Toan Thang and his wife; Ambassador Nguyen Thi Van Anh, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to UNESCO in France and a large number of officials and staff of the Vietnamese Embassy in France.
Participating in the 19th Francophone Summit, General Secretary and President To Lam and the high-ranking Vietnamese delegation attended the official welcoming ceremony chaired by the French President and the General Secretary of the Francophone to welcome the heads of delegations attending the conference; attended the opening session, the plenary session on the theme "Creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship"; the Francophone Business Forum on innovation, the award ceremony of the Francophone Economic Forum for outstanding Francophone businesses; met with a group of outstanding Vietnamese intellectuals from countries in the Francophone community; met with staff of the Embassy and permanent agencies in France, and the Vietnamese community in France.
On this occasion, the General Secretary and President also met and received a number of leaders of countries, international organizations, and foreign enterprises...
During his official visit to the French Republic, General Secretary and President To Lam attended the official welcoming ceremony; met with the press and held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron; met with the President of the French Senate; received the National Secretary of the French Communist Party and the France-Vietnam Friendship Association; visited the headquarters and worked with the Director General of UNESCO.
On this occasion, General Secretary and President To Lam and the high-ranking Vietnamese delegation laid flowers in memory of President Ho Chi Minh in Montreuil city; attended the inauguration ceremony of a commemorative plaque named after President Ho Chi Minh; met with the Mayor of Le Havre city...
The leaders of the two countries agreed to declare the upgrading of relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and agreed on major directions and measures to deepen the Vietnam-France Comprehensive Strategic Partnership framework, making it more practical and suitable for the cooperation framework between the two countries in the new context. With this decision, France became the first country in the EU to have a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Vietnam.
At the end of the visit, the two sides issued a joint statement on upgrading relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, affirming their commitment to deepening political cooperation in the face of international challenges; enhancing defense and security cooperation, as well as economic partnership, cooperation for sustainable development and self-reliance; and promoting people-to-people exchanges.
