President Emmanuel Macron of France will on Wednesday, July 4, 2018, inaugurate the brand new headquarters of Alliance Française Lagos located inside the Mike Adenuga Centre, Osborne Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.
A statement from the French language and cultural centre Monday, said that Macron, who is on a visit to Nigeria, will open the doors to the centre which has become reality due to the generousity of Dr. Mike Adenuga.
The statement explained that Adenuga committed to building a brand new cultural centre in a pristine location.
“Alliance Française has wished to move back to Ikoyi for many years. This wish has now become a reality due to the generosity of Dr. Mike Adenuga, who committed to build a brand new cultural centre in a pristine location. Instead of demolishing the beautiful but shanty existing villa, it was decided to keep it and renovate it as a testimony of the architectural heritage of the City of Lagos and to add a magnificent contemporary building beside,” the statement said.
The new venue will offer numerous facilities: a world class art gallery, a French restaurant with daily fresh bakery, a state-of-the-art cinema, artists’ studios, an outdoor amphitheatre, a library and e-library, nine fully equipped French language classrooms, translation and interpretation service, Campus France branch, offices and much more.
Open to all, the high profile cultural centre will offer more than 200 events yearly for thousands of patrons, including concerts, cocktails, dance shows and exhibitions and will be fully operational before the end of the year.
Alliance Française de Lagos is present in Yaba, Ikeja (in partnership with the Lagos State Ministry of Education), in Victoria Island (in partnership with Lycée-Louis-Pasteur) and Ikoyi (in partnership with Ethnic Heritage Centre).
It is a 60-year-old French language and cultural centre, part of the largest cultural network around the world with more than 840 Alliances. The Nigerian network has 10 associations throughout the country, in Enugu, Ibadan, Ilorin, Jos, Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, Maiduguri, Owerri and Port Harcourt. Each Alliance française centre is a non-for-profit Nigerian association headed by a Nigerian board.
Alliance française has three main goals:
– Offering French classes for all kind of audiences,
– Promoting French and francophone cultures
– Fostering cultural diversity through the promotion of all cultures
Alliance Française has a strong international image as a Nigerian institution supported by the French government.