The President signed a decree awarding Friendship Awards to Rene Guerra, President of the Association for the Preservation of Russian Cultural Heritage in France, Arnauld d'Hauterives, Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Fine Arts, Jean-Francois Cirelli, President and Director General of the Company Gaz de France, and David Khayat, Honorary President of the French National Cancer Institute.
The awards were given in recompense for an important contribution to the development of Russian-French cooperation.