With their shared French connection, two cities are beginning to rekindle their relationship.
To trace their roots and strengthen the bond further, Saint Denis, the capital City of Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, has initiated the process towards building a long term partnership with the Union Territory of Puducherry.
A delegation sent by the Mayor of city of Saint Denis visited Puducherry last week on an exploratory mission to facilitate opening of sectors for collaboration and partnership. The delegation comprising Didier Annette, Cabinet Director for the City of Saint Denis and Henriette Galien, Joint Deputy General Manager, visited educational and research institutions, health institutions, national archives and also met the government authorities in Puducherry.
Didier Annette, Cabinet Director for the city of Saint Denis, said: “We came with a plan to meet the government authorities in Puducherry to work towards signing twin city or partnership town agreement. We will identify areas where we could work together.”
Strong historical link
With one third of 8,50,000 population in Reunion Island of Tamil origin, city of Saint Denis has a strong historical link with Puducherry.
“Many people went from Puducherry to work in Reunion Island during the French regime. There is a generation now who wants to know what their origin and identity,” said Muriel Bertile, Regional Cooperation Coordinator, Reunion Island at the French Consulate in Puducherry.
Explaining the reason for choosing Puducherry for international partnership, Mr.Annette underlined: “We got a twin city partnership with Taiyuan city in Shanxi province of China. We share with them the celebration of Chinese Guandi festival. We build an international relationship from something that we already share with a city. Many people have their origin in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Reunion Island has a direct flight from Chennai flights twice a week.”
He added that they were more interested in education, university, sport and culture. “We are also looking at the smart city project, health sector, hospital facilities and tourism,” Mr.Annette said.
Exchange programme
The delegates from Reunion Island visited French Consulate, JIPMER, Pondicherry Central University. French Lycee, French Institute of Pondicherry, National Archives of India in Puducherry and held meetings with the Chief Secretary, tourism consultants and paid a courtesy visit to Chief Minister.
“We also met some people from Reunion who are living here. We met the chief secretary to talk on what sectors we could exchange knowledge. The idea is to sign a broad memorandum of understanding and then to facilitate the relationship between different actors,” Mr.Annette said.
He added that the delegation will meet the officials in Reunion Island next week and start working on the proposal. “We will try to be back next week and have talks with university board of directors to see if they are interested and find out their field of interest and sign a new partnership with the Department of French in Pondicherry Central University,” he said.
Mr. Annette underlined that they were planning to send their doctoral students to the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP) for research. “We are also interested in environmental issues especially in addressing the problems of coastal areas. We are looking for research partnership and we might look for an exchange programme with the IFP as well,” he said.
JIPMER visit
The delegation visited three departments in JIPMER. “Many people in the Reunion Island suffer from diabetes. We would like to initiate a joint research work on common field especially in ‘diabetes’. We will apprise the health authorities there and organise a teleconference between doctors in Reunion Island and JIPMER,” he said.
He added that they would follow due diligence. “First, meet he authorities, prepare a proposal and tune our decision. There could be action in the forthcoming weeks towards preparing memorandum of understanding. The administration has to do the preparatory work before the decision makers finalise,” he said.
Reunion Island has strong links with UT; one-third of its 8,50,000 population is of Tamil origin
