Introduction

Abstract

This introduction situates the volume within the centenary (2022) of France’s overseas cultural cooperation network and, more broadly, within a century of French cultural and scientific diplomacy. It presents this diplomacy as a long-term historical construction aimed at circulating language, arts, and knowledge internationally, from the prestige politics of Louis XIV and the rise of French as a diplomatic language to the creation of durable institutions abroad. Special attention is given to the French School at Athens (1846) as a pioneering model of scholarly presence, and to the Alliance Française (1883) as a key instrument of linguistic influence. The twentieth century’s geopolitical ruptures are shown to have accelerated institutionalization (from SOFE to the DGRC), while a specifically French preference is emphasized: keeping culture at some distance from overt political propaganda—unlike early U.S. “public diplomacy”—with academics playing a central role until the 1960s. Against this backdrop, Franco-Hellenic relations are framed as strong “elective affinities,” rooted in philhellenism, the legacy of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, and longstanding mutual admiration, evoked through Seferis, Malraux, Tsatsos, and de Gaulle’s 1963 speech in the Greek Parliament. The introduction then outlines the issue’s contributions and concludes on the resilience and adaptability of France’s cultural diplomacy.