MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

CFK in France to meet Sarkozy and witness Peace prize award to Grandmothers

Estela de Carlotto, head of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo will be presented with the Felix Houphouet-Boigny 2010 peace award.

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner travelled on Sunday to France and is scheduled to meet with her peer Nicholas Sarkozy on Wednesday midday at the Palais de l'Élysée, according to French government sources.

It is the Argentine president first overseas trip since winning the Augusta 14 primary and ahead of the launching of the October 23 presidential election campaign.

On Monday evening the Argentine president will hold a private meeting with Jean Michel Bouvier, father of Cassandra Bouvier one of the two young women abused and later murdered in the northwest province of Salta.

The circumstances surrounding the double murder in August of the two students shocked the peaceful town of Salta and echoed in France, and there is an on going investigation which has already identified the suspects and alleged killers.

The French President spoke with Cristina Fernández by telephone in August, to “congratulate the Argentine justice system and the police service for their efforts” to try to resolve the case.

On Tuesday Cristina Fernandez is scheduled to open a Photo exhibition at the Argentine embassy on the Dakar rally competition which took place in Argentina and Chile and will be repeated in January 2012.

Cristina Fernandez travelled to France with her daughter Florencia, Senator Daniel Filmus, Tourism minister Enrique Meyer, Human Rights Secretary Eduardo Luis Duhalde and will be joined in Paris by Foreign Affairs minister Hector Timerman returning from a trip to China.

Wednesday midday the president will meet Sarkozy and two issues outstand in the agenda they will be addressing: the G20 meeting next November, currently under the chair of France and negotiations to cancel Argentina’s sovereign debt, --estimated in 7 billion dollars-- with the Club of Paris.

Argentina, Brazil and Mexico represent Latin America in the Group of 20 most advanced economies of the world.

In the evening the president will attend an UNESCO event, at which Estela de Carlotto, head of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo will be presented with the Felix Houphouet-Boigny 2010 peace award.

The award which includes 150.000 dollars has on other occasions been given to Nelson Mandela, Lula da Silva, Yasser Arafat and Yithad Rabin, among others. The annual honour recognizes the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo efforts in finding the children stolen or born in captivity during the Argentine dictatorship (1976/1983)

An estimated 500 children from disappeared dictatorship prisoners were stolen or given out in adoption, of which the Grandmothers have managed to recover 105.