Transcript for

Jean-Marc, what was the inspiration behind creating the "Peace Through Languages" Forum?

The inspiration is quite simple really.

Communication is something that makes people get closer to one another

in order to communicate people need language, so that's one point.

The second point is that very often the plurality of language is viewed as an obstacle for communication,

and therefore, for people coming together because people happen not to speak so many languages.

and therefore the inspiration was first of all to think about this predicament,

we need communication to get closer to one another,

plurality of language is an obstacle very often, viewed as such in some cases,

and then the idea is to show that in fact far from being an obstacle to having people coming together

the plurality of languages enriches the communication of people and brings them together therefore help to lead to peace.

So what are the main goals for the forum?

I think that the main goal is the following;

To show that multilingualism has a strategy dimension very often,

when we talk about multilingualism in a "UN" setting, in a regional setting, the European Union,

we tend to focus on the cost, the financial cost, interpretation, translation, all of this is cumbersome, is expensive and so on.

Well, what we want to say is that these costs are never as important as the strategic dimension represented by

multilingualism in terms of importance for communication,

in terms of richness of the world that these plural humanities represent.

So what do you hope is the main message the participants take away from the forum?

Well simply the idea that living in a world of monolingualism would be a nightmare.

We need multilingualism as a way to express our diversity, and the richness of the world.

The cultural richness of the world.

It's not the really the icing on the cake here, it must be treated as something absolutely fundamental.