Jose Freches Commissioner General of the France Pavilion

"The opportunity to implement France's participation at the Universal Exposition of Shanghai from the beginning to the end was a fantastic experience. My team and I worked very hard on this project for three years.

I remember asking the architect Jacques Ferrier to set himself the objective of not having visitors to our pavilion queue for more than an hour. Given France's appeal to the Chinese public - her art de vivre, her refinement, her culture and her gastronomy - I am convinced that this easy access was one of the reasons for the France Pavilion's success.

What touched me the most was seeing tens of thousands of elderly people, often from the countryside, enter our pavilion with the smile of a child, as if on the brink of a wondrous journey. As our aim was to bring happiness to our visitors, I tend to think we achieved this objective.