Your Excellency,
It has given me great pleasure to welcome you today in your capacity as the first Ambassador of the Republic of France to Pakistan. With your appointment the relationship between our two countries assumes a closer and more intimate form and I hope and trust that this will presage the most cordial and friendly co-operation between our two countries.
The magnificent history of your great country and its achievements are well known to the world. In common with other nations, we in Pakistan have admired the high principles of democracy that form the basis of your Great State. The cry of liberty, fraternity and equality which was raised during your Great Revolution and officially adopted by your great Republic had its repercussions throughout the world as is known to every student of history. These ideals and these principles are still buoying up the hopes of many downtrodden nations. As Your Excellency has yourself observed the traditions (and may I add the culture) of Pakistan, as the youngest of the free Muslim countries of the world, has been inherited from a long past; –a past which, in view of the manifold contacts of France with the Muslim world over several centuries, is well-known and familiar to the Government and people of France. Indeed in view of this long contact of France with the Muslim world, the people of France and Pakistan are not strangers to one another. I hope and trust that with this background of intimate contact between our two peoples and in particular with Your Excellency’s knowledge of our brother Muslim countries, your appointment will inaugurate a new era which I hope will lead to closer friendship between France and Pakistan. I assure Your Excellency that we in Pakistan will give you our support and co-operation which you may require in promoting relationship of goodwill and friendship between our two countries and I trust that in the result, Pakistan and France will unitedly play their part in re-establishing peace and prosperity in the precent distracted world
Once again, Your Excellency, I assure you of a warm and friendly welcome to Pakistan.
Pakistan Zindabad
