For its first temporary exhibition, the Cité internationale de la langue française turns the spotlight on song - or rather, on the way in which French-language popular music travels the world. From “La Vie en rose” by Édith Piaf to “Pookie” by Aya Nakamura, from “La Marseillaise” proclaimed by a thousand revolts to the global contagion of Kassav''s zouk, the values, feelings, seductions and ideals conveyed by song form a mythology explored for the first time by a French cultural institution.

The Cité internationale de la langue française opened its doors in November 2023 in the heart of the fully restored Château de Villers-Cotterêts in the Aisne region. This is the very place where François Ier signed one of his most famous deeds: the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, which made French the official language of law and administration. It is also the place where Molière performed his Tartuffe, which was censored in Paris, and where Alexandre Dumas lived...

As a cultural center dedicated to the French language and francophone cultures, the Cité's ambition is to share a living language, reinvented by all those who practice it around the world, with as many people as possible. Its 1,200m² permanent exhibition route, its rich cultural program featuring temporary exhibition halls, a performance hall, courtyards and a garden, its café, bookshop, shared spaces for associative activities and artists' workshops... make the Cité a multi-disciplinary, local and international living space, open to all, in the heart of a unique green setting, the Retz forest.

Photo credit: Françoise Hardy in London, May 1968 © KEYSTONE-FRANCE/GAMMA RAPHO