French Embassy launches ‘Rendez-Vous with Yasmin and Kumar’

The Embassy of France in Sri Lanka and the Maldives launched ‘Rendez-Vous with Yasmin and Kumar’, a Franco-Sri Lankan talk show, on its YouTube channel last Friday (April 30)

The maiden edition featured the current Ambassador for France in Sri Lanka Eric Lavertu who explored Franco-Sri Lankan bilateral ties over three centuries from Lieutenant Delanerolle, the French Ambassador to the Court of King Rajasinghe the 2nd, down the years to the French Vice Consul Monsieur Paul Grimblot in 1859, to the present day.

Hosted monthly, this show, as its name suggests, will be a ‘meeting place’ and highlight Franco-Sri Lankan bilateral ties through language, culture, literature, diplomacy, music, art and travel etc.

In the pipeline are chats with celebrated film maker and Sri Lanka’s former Ambassador to France Sumitra Peries who recalls watching Roger Vadim shooting ‘And God Created Woman’ on the streets of St Tropez in the late 1950s with an “unknown actress” named Brigitte Bardot.

She also recalls how, years later, on one of her many visits to France with husband Lester James Peries, the couple were hosted at the family ‘chateau’ in Lyon of the Lumiere Brothers, Auguste and Louis, inventors of the Cinematograph.

A former teacher at the Alliance Francaise Sri Lanka in the 1980s, Bruno Duparc who returns to Colombo after more than three decades as the new Director General of the Alliance Francaise, recalls life in Colombo in the good old days and the current place of the French language in Sri Lanka.

Said Ambassador Lavertu, “The Bonsoir French television programme, hosted by our Embassy, very successfully took France to all corners of Sri Lanka, both in English and in Sinhala, from the mid-1980s, the pre-internet era, to 2010. I’m surprised that even to this day, many people still talk about Bonsoir with great nostalgia. In fact the French cancan music is still popular in Sri Lankan minds and evokes memories of great “visits” to France through this programme. Rendez-Vous is a continuation of that journey but in a different form and in a different space. I’m happy to see Yasmin and Kumar continue on that journey.”

Yasmin Rajapakse and Kumar de Silva first appeared together 35 years ago, in 1986, on ‘Bonsoir’ which they co-hosted for 15 years on ITN. “We are delighted to be back together all over again after a lapse of 20 years. This show is yet another exciting avatar in our journey in the Franco-Sri Lankan landscape. Technology has changed dramatically, as have lifestyles and viewer tastes. Here we are back, older and greyer, and perhaps wiser, to bring France a little bit more close to Sri Lanka,” they smile.