Jean-Claude Jacq on his maiden visit to Calcutta. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Travelling to eight to 10 countries a year is part of his job. “I get a new passport every year,” laughed Jean-Claude Jacq. The secretary-general of the Alliance Francaise Foundation was recently on his maiden visit to Calcutta.

“I am here to discover the Alliance Francaise du Bengale (the Calcutta chapter) an       d examine what we can do to improve its facilities. We need more space to cater to our increasing number of students,” said Jacq, at the end of a sumptuous Bengali dinner at a south Calcutta restaurant. That afternoon, he said, he had been taken for a cruise on the Hooghly by the French consul-general. But his discovery of Calcutta, he admitted, would have to be cut short.

“Tomorrow, I fly to Ahmedabad. Then there is Jaipur, Delhi and Mumbai. India is such a big country but my visits will be about problems and projects,” he smiled apologetically.

This is to be expected when one is heading an organisation that has the biggest cultural network in the world.

“We have 920 branches, which is far bigger than British Council or Goethe Institut.” And he is only the fourth head of the network since WWII.

“I took over in 2001. My tenure is as long as Hirohito’s reign was,” he laughs.

Which is the least expected country to have an Alliance chapter? “Umm…Easter Island. There are 1,500 people on the island. Of them, 100 are our students,” he says, putting on a mock-smug air. But the next two names need a look-up on Google.

Ushuaia — “It’s near the South Pole,” he adds helpfully — turns out to be the southern-most city in the world, in Argentina. In comparison, Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, is better known. In the small countries, Jacq says, the Alliance naturally has a smaller presence but the emotional connection is deeper there than in metropolitan cities.

Their network extends even to French-speaking countries in Africa like Senegal, Morocco and Gambia. “There we don’t have the language-teaching function.”

In terms of student numbers, the Bogota and Lima chapters top the chart. But what raises eyebrows is another statistic — in the last 10 years, as many as 15 Alliance Francaise centres have opened in China. “Our annual student strength has shot up to 25,000 a year,” he said, providing what must be a pointer to China’s attempt to open up. In India, Alliance has 16 centres.

Jacq was supposed to be in Japan last month after visiting Cuba and Venezuela but the Japan trip got cancelled because of the tsunami. “Two days ago I was in Nepal. I am due to head for Sudan in two weeks,” he says, without pulling out an organiser.

Soon to hit 60, Jacq has already been to 80 countries. “I have five more years left in office.” With the target being a total of 136 countries, Jacq seems to be keeping up to the asking rate of around 10 countries a year. “Eh oui, c’est possible (Oh yes, it is possible),” he does the math and muses in his mother-tongue.