APS : Thursday, 17 March 2016
PARIS- The city of Constantine was honoured at Paris Book Fair, opened Wednesday evening by French President François Hollande.
As part of the event “Constantine, Capital of Arab Culture 2015,” the special guest, also participating as the representative of the Algerian culture and literature, benefits from a special visibility (200 m2) in this major event, created in 1981.
During his visit to the Algerian pavilion which groups together 43 Algerian publishers, François Hollande said he was pleased to see one of the world’s oldest cities and the most important in the Mediterranean history participating in this fair which aims at receiving 200,000 visitors in three days.
At the end of his visit, two books were offered to President Hollande, one entitled “Fantasia” by Leila Boutamine Ould Ali and the other “Constantine, la cité des aigles, les mille et un noms” (Constantine, the city of eagles, the thousand and one names” by Abdelmadjid Merdaci.
The commissioner of the event “Constantine, Capital of the Arab Culture 2015,” Sami Bencheikh told APS that this participation is “the crowning” of all the activities which took place since 16 April 2015, the date of the beginning of this event.
