Party General Secretary and State President Tô Lâm meets with Nguyễn Hải Nam, Chairman of the France-Việt Nam Friendship Association (AAFV) in Paris. VNA/VNS Photo

PARIS — As part of his official visit to France, Party General Secretary and State President Tô Lâm met with Nguyễn Hải Nam, Chairman of the France-Việt Nam Friendship Association (AAFV) in Paris on Monday.

At the meeting, Nam informed the Vietnamese leader on the association's recent support activities toward Việt Nam, including assistance for Agent Orange victims, cooperation in science, technology, and health care, and aid for residents affected by Typhoon Yagi.

The chairman expressed his wish to expand the support to multiple provinces in Việt Nam and strengthen ties with the Việt Nam-France Friendship Association.

He suggested that Việt Nam’s competent agencies continue to facilitate the association’s projects benefiting the Vietnamese people as well as its key role in promoting friendship, solidarity, and cooperation between the two nations.

In response, the Party General Secretary and President noted that his visit to France is the first at the head-of-state level in 22 years, underlining Việt Nam’s willingness to deepen the strategic partnership, traditional friendship, and multifaceted cooperation with France.

Expressing his pleasure at the significant strides made in the bilateral relations over the past five decades since the two countries' diplomatic relations were established and 10 years of strategic partnership, he highlighted the increasing political trust thanks to high-level delegation exchanges and meetings, and strong expansion in their security, defence, education, science-technology, and locality-to-locality cooperation.

Appreciating the AAFV’s contributions to Việt Nam and recognising its active role in fostering the bilateral relations, Lâm affirmed that the Vietnamese Government always supports and creates favourable conditions for the association’s operations in Việt Nam.

He called on the AAFV to continue working closely with the Việt Nam-France Friendship Association and other patriotic groups such as the Vietnamese Association in France to bolster solidarity and promote people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. — VNS