France’s new government offices officially opened in Buckhead June 30, gathering half-a-dozen French organizations under its roof in preparation of a full calendar of activities to take place this fall.

Sam Massell, Buckhead Coalition president and former mayor of Atlanta and Kevin Goreham representing Mayor Kasim Reed participated in the opening ceremony at the Lenox Building, 3399 Peachtree Road.

France’s consul general, Pascal Le Deunff, greeted the officials and was joined among other guests by Michel Besson, director of the Atlanta bureau of the French Trade Commission-UbiFrance; Jim Blair, president of the French American Chamber of Commerce and Michele Oliveres, president of Atlanta-Accueil, an organization that helps acclimatize newly arrived French nationals to the Southeast.

As many as 100 guests participated in the ceremony and were taken on a tour of the offices in Suite 500, also now called “Maison de France,” by the French designer, Amelie De Gaulle, who lives in Nashville, Tenn., and is the great niece of Gen. Charles De Gaulle.

Mr. Le Deunff has enthusiastically supported the move to the new offices because of their superior accessibility in comparison to the consulate’s former quarters on Piedmont Road and for the synergies that will be encouraged through the closer proximity of the different organizations.

“I personally feel that this is the right time for the chamber to ally itself with the consulate because of the current consul general’s projects and enthusiasm,” Jim Blair, president of the French chamber, told GlobalAtlanta.

Mr. Le Deunff is organizing the “France-Atlanta: Together Towards Innovation” project for this fall that will draw on the resources of a large number of organizations in wide ranging programs including the arts, business, education and science.

Mr. Blair, who is assisting in organizing business panels for the France-Atlanta project, compared the chamber’s new location “to getting on a superhighway into corporate France.”

He said that France’s business culture with its employer, professional and trade associations, regional offices and local chambers of commerce can present challenges for U.S. businesspeople. Closer ties with the consulate should facilitate business relations between the Southeast and France, he said.

Atlanta’s consulate general serves the needs of French nationals living in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North and South Carolina and Tennessee.

The French Trade Commission-UbiFrance office in Atlanta is one of four in the country and specializes in the service sector for the entire U.S. It also assists companies that want to export to France, settle in the U.S. or develop commercial ties to the Southeast.

For more information about the consulate general, go to http://www.consulfrance-atlanta.org/

To learn more about the activities of the French chamber, go to

http://www.facc-atlanta.com/

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