
CAIRO, Sept 2 (MENA) – French Ambassador to Egypt Éric Chevallier on Tuesday bestowed the Legion of Honor at the rank of Knight on Egypt’s candidate for the post of UNESCO Director-General Khaled Anani.
The ceremony was attended by a host of Egyptian ministers, political, diplomatic, and cultural figures, alongside ambassadors of around 50 countries.
The prestigious award recognizes Anani’s exceptional academic, cultural, and scientific career, as well as his long-standing commitment to intercultural dialogue.
In his remarks, Chevallier praised Anani’s distinguished professional path and his dedication to education, culture, scientific research, international cooperation, and building lasting peace.
He highlighted Anani’s pivotal role in strengthening Franco-Egyptian relations for over three decades.
The French envoy reaffirmed his country’s strong and unwavering support for Anani’s candidacy for UNESCO’s top post, officially announced in November 2024.
He stressed that the endorsement rests on the candidate’s outstanding qualifications, extensive experience, and clear vision of UNESCO as a bridge among peoples through peace, intercultural dialogue, and universal values to confront global challenges.
For his part, Anani expressed deep gratitude to President Emmanuel Macron and to France, with which he has maintained close ties since childhood and throughout his career.
He described the honor as not only a tribute to the bridges built through knowledge, culture, and friendship, but also a responsibility toward the future.
Anani emphasized that global divisions necessitate placing education, science, culture, and communication at the core of collective action, while harnessing technological progress, environmental transformation, and knowledge-sharing as tools for cooperation, innovation, intercultural dialogue, and building lasting peace.
In a statement, the French Embassy underlined Anani’s career as a professor of Egyptology at Helwan University for more than 30 years and a leading scholar who trained generations of students in Egypt and France.
He also played a key role in showcasing Egypt’s cultural heritage, overseeing projects such as the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in partnership with UNESCO and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, before serving as minister of antiquities and later minister of tourism and antiquities, where he spearheaded the merger of both institutions.
During his tenure, Anani supported numerous heritage restoration projects, museum developments, and high-profile cultural events that captured global attention, including the Pharaohs’ Golden Parade, the reopening of Luxor’s Avenue of Sphinxes, and the record-breaking “Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Pharaoh” exhibition in Paris in 2019, which drew over 1.4 million visitors.
The embassy also noted that Anani has been decorated with several international honors, including the French Order of Arts and Letters (2015), the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (2020), Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun (2021), and was named Special Ambassador for Cultural Tourism by the UN World Tourism Organization in 2024.
Backed by the African Union, the Arab League, and a growing number of countries including France, Anani is now running for UNESCO’s top position. If elected, he would become the first Arab and the second African to serve as UNESCO’s Director-General since the organization’s establishment 80 years ago. (MENA)