People used to call Bucharest “little Paris”. It was saucy, its inhabitants seemed more civilized and more educated than they are today, and it didn’t look as kitschy as it does today FRANCE-ROMANIA: TWO CENTURIES OF FRIENDSHIP

People used to call Bucharest “little Paris”. It was saucy, its inhabitants seemed more civilized and more educated than they are today, and it didn’t look as kitschy as it does today. The self-respecting Romanians spoke French, and the school helped them choose this language as the most important one. The Romanian intellectuals used to be attracted by the French school. The modernization of the Romanian culture evolved under the sign of the French spirituality.

STUDIES IN PARIS

The intellectuals were the first actual Romanian immigrants in Paris. The intellectuals attracted by the ideas of the 1789 Revolution. The nineteenth century is full of personalities that chose the French Universities to study. Petrache Poenaru, who studied in Paris, was an organizer of the Romanian education system. Nicolae Balcesu also stayed in Paris where he studied the history philosophy. Titu Maiorescu, another symbol of our culture, studied in Paris like Nicolae Iorga, who studied history in the French Capital.

IMMIGRATION

Afterwards, a lot of Romanians in the country’s political, cultural and economical elite had to leave Romania during the communist dictatorship. France was one of the favorite countries of the ones that chose the exile. Names like Mircea Eliade, Eugen Ionesco, Emil Cioran, Elvira Popescu, Vladimir Cosma, Paul Goma are the most important when it comes to the Romanian exile in France. Today, the Romanian Diaspora in France counts tens of thousands of souls and most of them still feel attached to their mother country. Throughout years, they managed to create several cultural associations destined to support an