The history of our Cercle as an interest group for francophiles could be compared to the 'cernes', tree rings or a series of concentric circles.
Our Belfast circle can trace its roots back to the 1980s and what was then the Cercle français d’Irlande du nord, with its ‘hexagone’ logo connecting the nickname for the shape of France with the six-sided basalt stones of the Giant’s Causeway and, in 1989, that Cercle was to the fore in celebrating the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution – it was a year of the French!
At the time, the Cercle went à pied finding premises throughout the Belfast area to host the different events on our full programme of teaching and activities. However, whilst membership continued to grow thanks to the success and popularity of our talks and wide variety of events, offering language tuition became more challenging and at this time our group became Le Cercle Français de Belfast which is still enjoying the support of the Alliance Française de Londres and is proud to be connected to it and the many other other Cercles in their network.
Since 1995 and throughout the concentric rings of our various phases, Le Cercle Français de Belfast has been uniting our local community of francophone and francophile members, providing a space for cultural exchange and learning. Our mission is to offer those who have a love of, and interests for, anything French to come and join our association as we take the road once more to various venues over the coming year across the Greater Belfast area and beyond and we hope to see you soon, whether in person or virtually at one of our upcoming events.
Au prochain cerne !
Here’s to the next ring!