On the afternoon of December 1, the Inauguration Ceremony for the Lyon Confucius Institute took place at Lyon II University. Kong Quan, China’s ambassador to France, Mr. ARRUE, deputy Mayor of Lyon, Hugues FULCHIRON, President of Lyon Ⅲ University, Olivier CHRISTIN, President of Lyon Ⅱ University, Li Daying, vice President of Lyon Ⅲ University as well as vice President of Sun Yat-sen University attended the inauguration ceremony. In addition, Wang Bing, President of School of Translation and Interpretation of SYSU, Zhou Xiaobin, President of School of Chinese as a second language and more than 70 teacher and student representatives from Lyon Ⅱ and Ⅲ Universities were also present at the ceremony. The local media and China’s Xinhua Net made in-depth news coverage on the establishment of the Confucius Institute in Lyon.

Lyon has been on good terms with Guangzhou. Meanwhile, Lyon Ⅲ University has/ maintained a long-standing cooperative relationship with Sun Yat-sen University Recently, the desire to learn Chinese and to know about China has increased dramatically in Lyon and its surrounding areas. The establishment of Lyon Confucius Institute marks a new developing period for the Chinese teaching in Lyon. It also indicates that the cooperation between Lyon Second, Third University and Sun Yat-sen University, Lyon city and Guangzhou city has reached a new platform.