Angers, an internationalized city thanks to its students

The weekly L'Express dedicated an issue published in the first days of april to Angers and especially to the links that city works abroad. One of the feature articles of that magazine analyzes the reasons of the internationalization of Maine-et-Loire and points out that one third of the exporter companies in the Pays de la Loire comes from the Maine-et-Loire.


The main reason is the existence of 30 000 students in Angers "who face, since their childhood, the global world". About 1 100 students stays abroad in 2011. at the same time, 4 200 Fellow students coming from 115 countries live in Angers. That figure doubled in ten years. According to L'Express, this internationalization of the city has started a long time ago, but Angers signed a twinning with an English city, Wigan, in 1987 only.


Every year, Angers city selects young amabassadors in charge of setting up links with economic, cultural or sports authorities of the city they stay in. That direct relationship allows to implement very pratical projects between Angers and its twinned cities. Of course, Angers welcomes ambassadors of those cities. Recently, a website - twinus.eu - has been set up to promote travels, studies, internships or salaried jobs are promoted.


In that survey, the need for the inhabitants to improve their linguistic ability is pointed out by the former chairman of the Chamber of commerce de Maine-et-Loire : "the learning of foreign languages is absolutely necessary" while the chief editor of the weekly thinks that Angevins are now far from the delight of the famous "Home, sweet home"...