Xavier De Bustos, organising a fund-raiser on Bastille Day
Most of us are familiar with the size of other expat communities living here, but the French community, officially 8,000 people but possibly as many as 25,000, seems to go largely unnoticed. This is a problem that has been exercising the minds of the French Trade Advisers of Ireland, one of the drivers behind tonight's gala Bastille Day dinner at the Shelbourne Hotel, a fund-raiser for the French school in Ireland, the Lycée Français d'Irlande, but it also has a broader role in acting as a high-profile get-together for the community in Ireland.
"French people in Ireland tend to stick in small groups and do not mix so well," says Xavier de Bustos, who is president of the French Trade Advisers of Ireland. "This is one of the reasons that most Irish people do not know about the size of the French community here. This event is the first time that all of the different groupings such as ourselves, the Embassy, Association des Français d'Irlande, the Ireland-France Chamber of Commerce and the Alliance Française have got together. Gathering around the flag is not naturally French so it has not been easy, but the school is the one thing we all have in common. Our target is for this event to become an annual celebration of the community here and to create a great image of France in Ireland."
The Lycée Français d'Irlande consists of a primary school in Foxrock and a secondary school at St Kilian's Eurocampus in Clonskeagh, which it shares with the German School. It currently schools 500 French, Irish and francophone children. De Bustos, who is married here and chief executive of an innovation consultancy firm in Dublin, sees the school as vitally important to the community. "A few years ago it was dying due to lack of funding but it now has ambitious plans to expand. For example, it would be impossible for us to attract French people to come and work here if there was no French school."
Lorraine Keane is MC for the evening, and entertainment comes from Caroline Moreau and the Camembert Quartet band. Not surprisingly, the hosts have had quite an involvement in the evening's choice of food and wine. "This event is all about food, wine and glamour, which are all things that are associated with France. It is our way of saying, 'We are strong here in Ireland, we are grateful to be here and we feel very welcome here.' " Michael Kelly.