The Diplomat
The Institut Français of Barcelona, the oldest language school in the city and in Catalonia as a whole, celebrates its first 100 years in 2021.
According to historian Guillaume Horn on the website of the French Embassy in Spain, the center was created in November 1921 at the initiative of the University of Toulouse. In 1922, the first leap in the history of the Institute took place with the appointment as director of the teacher Achille Bertrand, an Occitan historian specialized in Catalan culture, who transformed the French Institute into a cultural center and school. In 1924, secondary level classes were created to prepare for the French Baccalaureate exams.
During the Civil War, the Institute housed a dining room for children and served as a food distribution center and, between 1939 and 1975, it became “a true space of freedom and a window to the outside world, throughout the dictatorship” of Francisco Franco, according to the Embassy. An example of this were the Cercles, informal meetings in which Catalan artists and intellectuals could debate freely without being subjected to pressure from Franco’s authorities and which served as a clandestine channel of transmission between several generations of Catalan intellectuals and artists.
The French Institute also contributed in the allocation of scholarships that allowed Catalan artists and intellectuals to study and develop their art and thought freely in France, “far from the ultraconservative codes of Francoism,” the Embassy continued. An exponent of this was the exhibition Le Choc Parisien des artistes catalans (1945-1976), which brought together the career of several Catalan artists such as Antoni Tàpies, Josep Maria Subirachs, Josep Guinovart and Palau Ferré, who accessed these grants to travel to Paris and rub shoulders with other artistic influences.
With the Transition, the Institut Français de Barcelona strengthened its involvement within the network of French institutes in Spain, Europe and the world, and in 1992, during the Barcelona Olympic Games, the Institute’s classes achieved unprecedented success.
Each year, the Institut Français de Barcelona welcomes more than 2,500 students. In addition, the center is not limited to being a mere language school and is an integral part of the cultural fabric of Barcelona, Catalonia and, more generally, Spain through the organization of many cultural events such as concerts, screenings and exhibitions.
