Cultural Services French Embassy in the United States

The Cultural Services are a division of the French Embassy in the United States. The Cultural Services were first imagined in the 1930’s by Paul Claudel. In 1945 General de Gaulle appointed Claude Lévi-Strauss as the first Cultural Counselor, with the mission of providing Americans (individuals and organizations) with access and resources to engage with French culture and promote it in their own communities.
Today, under the leadership of Gaëtan Bruel, Cultural Counselor of the French Embassy and Permanent Representative of French Universities in the United States, Cultural Services of the French Embassy promote the best of French arts, literature, cinema, language, and higher education across the US. Based in New York City, Washington D.C and eight other cities across the country, the French Cultural Services brings artists, authors, educational and university programs to cities nationwide. It also builds partnerships between French and American artists, institutions, and universities on both sides of the Atlantic. In New York, through its bookshop, Albertine, it fosters French American exchange around literature and the arts.