French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabre briefed Monday on the forthcoming France year in China in October with a concert of French musician Jean-Michel Jarre in the Forbidden City in Beijing.

The unprecedented grand concert of Jean-Michel Jarre in the Forbidden City and the grand picnic on the Great Wall are two highlight events that will make the France year in China a festival, said de Vabres at a joint news conference with French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier and Chinese Vice Culture Minister Meng Xiaosi at the French foreign ministry.

Universities of all disciplines, scientific exhibition, opening of Pasteur Institute and a French-Chinese Technology Institute in Shanghai will also make the year a festival of science, knowledge and innovation, he added.

The French culture minister said that the France year in China will be concentrated on these three themes of culture: heritage, creation and invention.

To show the French culture to Chinese public, an impressionist exhibition is being prepared by the French Orsay Museum.

"It is for the first time that these magnum opus of French paintings are to leave France and to be showed in China," he said.

Another exhibition on King Louis XIV of France is being prepared by the Chateau de Versailles (ancient French royal residence) to be reciprocal of the exhibition on Chinese Emperor Kangxi (1654-1722), which experienced a great success at Versailles.

A third exhibition on French contemporary art will be organized by France's Pompidou Center on industrial design and creation. It will be accompanied by an exhibition on French contemporary architecture and an exhibition on Paris and other French regions.

A French baroque opera will be represented in four Chinese cities.

Source: Xinhua