Minister of Youth, Culture and Communication, Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, inaugurated the Morocco pavilion, the guest of honor at the 2025 Paris Book Festival, yesterday evening. The event will continue until April 13 at the Grand Palais in the French capital.
The national pavilion was officially opened in the presence of French Culture Minister Rachida Dati and Valérie Pécresse, President of the Île-de-France region, alongside other Moroccan and French figures, including André Azoulay, advisor to His Majesty the King, Morocco’s Ambassador to France, Samira Sehtaïl, the Permanent Representative of the Kingdom to UNESCO, Samir Dahar, and Christian Cambon, President of the Franco-Moroccan Parliamentary Friendship Group in the Senate.
A number of Moroccan and French writers attended the opening of the Moroccan pavilion, which features around forty publishing houses. This is part of a special program titled “Messages from Morocco,” which includes 46 events showcasing the diversity and richness of Moroccan literary production.
The extensive programming for the festival, which runs from April 11 to 13, features a wide range of activities within the Moroccan pavilion, including 28 seminars in the lecture space, 16 discussion panels on literary and social topics, 10 book presentations, and two artistic performances (music and theater), as well as an international roundtable on “The Atlantic Destiny between France and Morocco,” in line with this year’s theme: “The Sea.”
The program also includes a documentary titled “The Moroccan Caftan: A Journey Through the Hands of Artisans,” along with children’s activities featuring 15 workshops (in zellige, weaving, and cultural quizzes), as well as a musical storytelling performance titled “Le voyage de Pois Chiche.”
Among the events, there will also be three tribute sessions honoring notable figures in Moroccan literature: Idriss Chraïbi, Edmond Amran El Maleh, and Mohamed Khair-Eddine, in addition to highlighting women’s presence in Moroccan literature through meetings with several prominent female writers.
