Prime Minister Edi Rama threw a welcome state dinner for the President of France Emmanuel Macron and the accompanying French delegation at the Palace of Brigades, where he delivered a speech: 

Dear Mr. President,

Dear Emmanuel,

Excellency,

Ladies and gentlemen,

In its long history, Albania has seen swarms of renowned and less known French people move through its soil. 

In the bygone and less happy days were the nomads, the crusaders. In earlier and less happy days tourists whose excitement about our coast, our landscapes, our culture, has only just begun. More than 80 000 French people visited Albania this country alone, which motivates us to press ahead with the joint effort to bring our two countries closer by enhancing bilateral exchanges. 

This is to underline the importance we attach to the French expertise in this field, in addition to the more specific assistance France proposes to offer Albania in the framework of the European Union membership negotiations. This is also to highlight the significance of a much stronger, lasting and long-awaited connection through direct flights between France and Albania.

Although Albania has welcomed French people interested in getting to know it, yet it has never welcomed France to this day literally. Of course, such a presence of France in a country like ours cannot be limited to high-level official visits only. However, it becomes completely meaningful, gains significant power and moves forward only when the head of state, who embodies it abroad and gives it the impulse, leaves at the same time his hallmark.

It actually suffices to look at the agenda of this short, but intense visit, to realize the incredible momentum in our bilateral relations in various fields, including economy and sustainable development, security or what I call high-tech culture, if we are to refer to the cooperation in the area of audio visual, cinema or contemporary art.

By welcoming you today, Mr. President, Albania proudly welcomes France in a very friendly way, with much hopes and even in an emotional way. It is not an emotion of the moment, but a deep feeling with its roots in history, when Charles I d’Anjou, brother of Louis IX of France, founded the first kingdom in the Albanian history in the 13th century, without ever setting foot in the country, a certain Albania waited for a long time, for many centuries, for France to come, if not to kiss it, at least to give it a sincere hug. 

This dream was one of the other reasons that explain this strong will of the Albanians to anchor on the shores of the west of Europe at any cost. Is this a virtue or a vice? Albanians have always been against regional trends.

Our national poet went even that far to challenge the solar system in a bid to convince us of the legitimacy of our legendary persistence. The Sun, he used to write, “The blessed Light rises from where the sun sets in the West.”

I don’t think I am mistaken and I do not think I would be lying by affirming that for many centuries until recently, in the eyes of a certain Albania that had a certain idea about ​​itself, France was Europe and Europe to be itself could not be anything else but a three-color Europe.

We are steadily convinced that the European political community project initiated by a French inspiration under your leadership confirms that France wants our region’s European dream to come true and that our legitimate expectations for integration are met, even through order.

This ancient dream, this yearning hope of which I spoke a bit, means that Albania and the Albanians enjoy the sympathy, attention and, very often, the friendship of the great French, from Montaigne and Voltaire who told the story of Skanderbeg’s gesture, to d’Estournelles de Constant and Justin Godart, who contributed to Albania’s regeneration, to mention a few.

We haven’t been lacking support from our French friends. For a long time, there have been French people who loved and appreciated us, then a France that no longer had interest in us, although not completely.

In 1916, in a miracle of history, the Albanian national feeling and the soldiers of the Republic met in Korça, a much-desired area by the soldiers and neighbors and where a part of the Eastern army was stationed. Meanwhile, the Albanian nationality elsewhere across the country was oppressed under the yoke of fighters, soldiers, Korça, France gave it its flag, gave it the Republic, and its legitimate right in the concert of nations. When the soldiers left, another army arrived, this time the holy soldiers of the Republic who took over the emancipation on Albanian soil.

I mean the teachers who came from France. It is the wonderful story of the history of the French Lyceum of Korça, one of the most significant Franco-Albanian successes. It is important not only to commemorate it, but also to revive its spirit and turn it into a project for the future.

The future definitely belongs to education. Teachers point to the urgency to defend education, to further develop and render the emancipating power it carries.

Whole Albania and Albanians that owe so much to the French teachers, bow respectfully in front of the memory of Dominique Bernard, the literature professor who died most recently from barbarism.

Mr. President, on the 101st anniversary of the establishment of our diplomatic ties, your visit heals a rift, strengthens trust and establishes the privileged relations that we unfolded by signing the bilateral strategic partnership treaty in 2017.

Although your visit bears its sentimental side, the reason and not the feelings make us appreciate it more; the state reason that should not be mentioned too much, but especially the European reason that should prevail. While it is true that states have no friends, but only interests, it is also true that well-understood and shared interests make good friends.

It is even truer that these friends have extremely common interests, mostly due to geography, history and values, a common home. This house is Europe.  Perhaps the definition of our geographical area by means of the Balkan formula, used by German historians in the 18th century, had the unfortunate consequence that the European affiliation was erased. It was removed! But as soon as we change the register and as soon as we talk about Southeast Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, an extremely European reality appears; a reality also seeking to find shelter in this common home of ours.

Feeling – as General de Gaulle used to say – is inspired by sentiment as much as by reason. General de Gaulle was one of the heads of the French state who did not ignore Albania completely. Did he feel that France’s European, civilizing interests should make it lend a helping hand to Albania? He was the first to recognize the Albanian government in exile in London after the country’s fascist occupation. He was the first to open the earliest Western diplomatic Chancellery in Tirana after the country’s liberation. He was the one who in a public speech in Rennes, in 1947, denounced the fact that allied Albania had been abandoned under the influence, I quote: Slavic, synonymous with the era of totalitarianism.

It was under his presidency that the diplomatic missions of our two countries were raised to the level of embassies. Let me state how much the “Gaulle” ideal about the self-determination of the peoples nourished the emancipation hopes of the Albanians, especially in Kosovo, to defeat the humiliation, to find their inclination as a nation and to join the group of nations that after liberation and after decolonization can all together recite the verses by the poet Paul Eluard: “Liberty, I write your name.” These words reverberate even stronger today amid the devastation the people of Ukraine are being through. 

This dinner, Mr. President, is an illustration of strong and demanding and very legitimate ambitions from both sides. We have never seen such a complete and diverse French delegation. This delegation is everything that France can offer in terms of economy, culture, and education. We had not been considered so seriously until lately and with such a desire to include France in Albania’s success, and its EU membership negotiations.

France tables concrete proposals now; sends its experts, supports Albania significantly in its EU accession negotiations. Our development agencies are coming together to elaborate the national strategic investment plan and are preparing to sign a joint document that will guide future decisions in terms of sustainable development and this is only part of the commitments of this visit.

At the same time, for the first time, this visit gives you the opportunity to see united here, part of the living forces of the country that have a common French language. These people have been entrusted with considerable public responsibilities. They inspire civil society. This refutes the famous World Bank Doing Business report, according to which the French, the French language, was less suitable for business. How come?

This is because France’s investments are yielding results. Many of these young people have returned to Albania even though they have completed successful studies and even though they have been leading a meritorious professional career in France. They have been influenced by French values ​​that push them to new horizons; lead them to act with their dedication to work, with their inclination to leave the beaten path, often taking risks, their professional exigency, desire for reflection, they make a difference in the state ranks, so they are living examples of what France, the French soul, the French way of doing, can become assets that pave the way for opportunities.

Just like Ismail Kadareja, Angelin Preljocaj, Tedi Papavrami, Lorik Cana, Julien Roche, Ornela Vorpsi, and many others are for our greatest pleasure and our greatest pride. They are men and Albanian, French, Franco-Albanian women leading professional careers in various areas, but also giving the rhythm to our relations and ensuring the concert of common ambitions. 

Mr. President, the threats against the international order, the challenges we face regarding technology, the need to prevent these threats from spreading in our societies, force France and Albania to unite and agree with one another. I think this is exactly what we are doing, whether it is about the economy, about culture or about development, education, we have realized that no investment can reduce the gaps if it does not ensure a common future.

The major French investments, namely the two photovoltaic parks by Voltalia, the largest in the region, as well as the ongoing talks with TotalEnergies in the field of renewable energy, are certainly important for the economy, but what is more important it is the role in the climate and environmental protection, that is to our common future.

These investments also strengthen bilateral cooperation, help us in better knowing each other, unifying our destinies and building a common front in the huge challenges of our era.

They also allow us to defend the values ​​without which our democracies would fall apart. In this regard and in the times we live in, no country is immune. Real solidarity is a must, as it should be a common front of civilized nations in the absence of which extremism, intoxication, violence can prevail.

In this regard, there is no big or small country, but there is only democracy at stake and solidarities that need to be built. Exclusion is no longer an option.

Mr. President, France possesses all the means to lead the right war in the heart of Europe. Feel free to take on board a country that certainly suffers from its problems and shortcomings, but is not the least European country in terms of beliefs, the most peaceful country in terms of politics, the most exemplary country in terms of secularism and religious brotherhood. It would be the honor of France to give this fraternal embrace that it has been waiting for over the centuries, and it is our privilege on this day that France visits us through your person, to welcome France with great gratitude and with a huge sense of responsibility.

Vive la Albania and vive la France!