Rabat – Abdeljalil Lahjomri, the Permanent Secretary of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, received the 2019 “Grand Prix de la Francophonie” from the French Academy.
The Academy annually awards one intellectual who has contributed to the development of the French language throughout the world.
The current director of the Collège Royal of Rabat was praised for his academic career and achievements as the head of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, and received €15,000.
Lahjomri was awarded, on June 20, the highest distinction of the 64 prizes and medals that make up the 2019 Palmarès of the French Academy. The Moroccan intellectual tied with the Czech poet Petr Kral.
The Academy chose the winners on merit, without any application submissions, on the basis of the academic performance of each intellectual.
Lahjomri said he was “honored to win this prestigious distinction which recognizes Morocco’s place on the international level and is a credit to the academic work done by and in Morocco.”
He added that he is “even happier because it is a recognition of Morocco, the Kingdom’s Academy, and the rich and ancestral Moroccan culture.”
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The French Academy, founded in 1635, is an assembly of 40 members elected for life by vote of the members of the Academy. These 40 ‘Academicians’, a term specific to the Academy, carry the name of ‘Immortals’ as death is the only way they lose their title.
The Academy is the guardian institution of the French language and the updating of its dictionary. It is composed of poets, novelists, playwrights, literary critics, philosophers, historians, scientists, and, by tradition, high-ranking military men, statesmen, and religious leaders, who have “all particularly illustrated the French language.”
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