French Embassy - Knightsbridge, London, UK
N 51° 30.148 W 000° 09.506
30U E 697212 N 5709532
This building houses the French Embassy and Ambassador's residence in London.
Waymark Code: WMDB62
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 12/18/2011
Views: 3
The current ambassador, Bernard Emié, took up residence in London on 2nd April 2011. The embassy is a Grade II listed building and the entry, in English Heritage, reads:
"Mansion, now embassy. Mid C19. Painted stucco. Italianate style. Main block of five storeys, three windows wide to Albert Gate; returns also three windows, plus four-window three storey wing to rear. Rustication to ground floor. Central entrance in Doric porch with paired columns. Windows square headed, pedimented to first floor with flanking Corinthian half columns. Architraves to upper windows. Windows mainly sashed, with small panes. Balconies to first and second floors. Cornice of a pair with glazed mansard. Balustraded area. One of a pair with 2 Albert Gate."
No 2 Albert Gate is the Kuwait embassy.
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The twentieth century saw the two powers embark on genuine long-term cooperation through the Entente Cordiale. The Entente Cordiale was a colonial-era agreement signed by the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, and the French Ambassador, Paul Cambon, in London on 8 April 1904 with the aim of settling long-standing disputes between the UK and France in countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Siam, Madagascar, the New Hebrides, West and Central Africa and Newfoundland. But it had a wider significance in that it also represented a shift from a history overshadowed by conflict and rivalry to a sustained era of rapprochement and alliance. For example, the agreements were crucial in paving the way for Franco-British diplomatic and military cooperation in the lead-up to World War One. France and Britain fought side by side in the two world wars and it was from London than General de Gaulle called on the French to resist German occupation in 1940. France and the UK are both permanent members of the United Nations Security Council which they helped found. Together in new theatres (Suez, the Gulf, the Balkans, Afghanistan), the two nations have constantly sought to strengthen their alliance since the United Kingdom joined the EEC (1973). the recent Saint-Malo summit (1998) highlighted an increasingly close relationship between London and Paris, symbolized by the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994.
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