“No prejudgement on Lanka”: visiting French Senator

Wednesday, 21 August 2013 00:02 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Sri Lanka Friendship Group in the French Senate soon
Visiting Senator hails President’s peace and development

By Dharisha Bastians A Sri Lanka Friendship Group is to be constituted in the French Senate in September in a bid to boost links between the legislatures of the two countries and improve trade, tourism and commercial ties, a visiting French Senator said yesterday, on her maiden visit to the island. Independent Senator Nathalie Goulet from the Orne constituency in Normandy, France, who was in Sri Lanka for a three day visit on the invitation of the Ministry of External Affairs, is expected to lead the Group once it is established.

She said the priority would be to put Sri Lanka on the map for French people. “The French are bad at geography. So the first thing to do will be to make presentations about Sri Lanka to help the people of France identify with the country and identify areas of mutual interest from there,” Goulet explained. “There is a three year road map for the Group that is in the process of being formulated with the Embassy of Sri Lanka in France,” Goulet told the media at the end of her visit here yesterday. Goulet said she arrived in Sri Lanka without “prejudgement” and said that the situation in the country “looks really peaceful.” “God knows you have enough issues here but I do not want to engage on politics on my first visit here,” the Senator said, adding that she did not meet with any Opposition Parliamentarians during her stay.

Referring to her meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Goulet said that he had been “full of hope and interest” about the plans for the Friendship group presented by Sri Lanka’s Envoy to France, Prof. Karunaratne Hangawatte and herself. “There are many areas on which to cooperate and the aim is to keep the Group from drifting with no results once it is constituted,” the visiting Senator said, adding that she expected the two countries to liaise on trade, tourism, green energy and waste management. A second French delegation of about five or six senators would identify fields of action and meet with parliamentary and other officials in a few months, the Senator said.Goulet met with Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Sports Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage and the Governors of the North and Eastern Provinces during her visit. “I have seen the reality of Sri Lanka and I am ready to tell the world about your efforts to bring peace and development to the country,” the President’s Media Unit quoted Goulet as saying in a media release yesterday. “She said some countries make remarks on the Sri Lankan situation without an understanding of the ground situation,” the Presidential Media Unit said.