Franco-German Youth Office
The Franco-German Youth Office is an organisation to subsidize programs for children, adolescents and young adults. Its main goal is to intensify the Franco-German relationships through cultural exchanges for young people, with the mission of "strengthening the bonds that unite French and German youth, increasing their mutual understanding and bringing about, encouraging and carrying out meetings and exchanges".
History
The Youth Office was one of the first institutions created on the basis of the Élysée Treaty that was signed on January 22, 1963 in Paris. The FGYO's first initiative was organized in the summer of 1963, bringing together a few dozen French and Germans on the historic fields of Verdun.The FGYO was originally headquartered in Rhöndorf near Bonn, then the West German capital. In December 2000, the last employees moved out from there. It is now headquartered in Paris, with its main German office in Berlin and a branch office, which opened in 2014, in Saarbrücken.
Since 1963 the organisation has financed projects for 10 million young Germans and French through participation in 400.000 exchange programs. The Franco-German Youth Office has facilitated leadership exchanges for youth organizations, as well as vocational internships and camps, town partnership, work camps, individual and family exchanges, sporting events, educational and linguistic programs, apprenticeships, and more. In 2023 it organised 7,406 events with about 188,000 participants.