Alliance Française de Calcutta, the Kolkata address of The French Association, is located at Khaleel Manzil at Beckbagan off AJC Bose Road. The lane on which the building stands serves as a useful conduit for motorists who wish to take a shortcut after the AJC Bose Road flyover has come up.
It’s a cramped accommodation for AF, and especially since there is no dearth of learners of elementary French, at times the classrooms would have no space left to even move one’s feet. The smallish lobby on the ground floor is rather a passage than a lobby in true sense.
Despite the obvious problem of space the teaching of French is really good. Few years back my daughter studied there for a year, and she speaks highly of the standard there.
All these will change soon when The French Association moves to a spacious venue, possibly somewhere in Salt Lake, in a few months.
The stage seems also set for the city to have full-fledged consulate office in not-so-distant future. Dominique Girard, the French ambassador in India, now in Kolkata on 2-day visit, feels time has come to make French presence felt more strongly in the city in keeping with French companies’ willing to spread wings in the state.
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