A replica of the Bulgarian pavilion at the 1900 Paris World Exposition will be erected outside Sofia's National Gallery for Foreign Art as part of an exhibition, Paris 1900, in October this year.

This year's joint cultural programme of the French embassy and the French Institute was unveiled at a news conference on March 19 attended by French ambassador to Bulgaria Philippe Autié and the director of Bulgaria's French Institute, Didier Talpain.

In 2012, 21 programmes will be co-produced by a combination of artists and Bulgarian institutions.

David Weizmann, cultural attache at Bulgaria's French Institute, expressed satisfaction about the results. "I am very happy about the co-operation with our Bulgarian partners and I'd like to thank Vezdhi Rashidov (Culture Minister) and Yordanka Fandukova (Sofia mayor) for their welcome and efforts in mounting these joint projects," he said.

The programme of the French institute also comprises three European events that will be developed in Sofia: The European night of museums, the European festival of music and the European month of photography.

On the musical front there will be productions of Rossini's opera Le Comte Ory, (1828), Charles-Simon Catel's Les Bayaderes (1810), Georges Bizet's The Pearl Fishers (1877), and Jacques Offenbach's La Belle Hélène (1864).

The Bulgarian public will also be able to enjoy French films by way of the second festival of French cinema in October.

More details and exact dates will follow throughout the year.