A forum on the development of people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and France is held in Paris, France, May 4, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]

　　Several months ago, at a public school in southern France, students in a Chinese-language class learned that French President Emmanuel Macron would bring a 200-member delegation to China. They immediately put a question to their teacher, Hu Peixin: "Why not take us along?"

　　Hu, the first Chinese teacher at Ecole Internationale PACA in Manosque, joked: "One day, when you can switch fluently between Chinese and French, perhaps you can be part of such a trip."

　　But the students soon came up with another idea.

　　"If we want to go to China, we should make our wish known to the Chinese side," they said, asking Hu whether they could write a letter to China about it.

　　So they did. More than 20 teenagers, most of them high school students, worked with their teachers to prepare a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping. In the letter, they shared their experiences of learning Chinese and their love for Chinese culture, while expressing their strong willingness to enhance exchanges between Chinese and French youth and to deepen the traditional friendship between the two countries.

　　To their surprise, a reply arrived on Thursday.

　　In his reply, Xi said that he welcomed them, along with more young people from France and Europe, to come to China for study, visits and travel, so that they could gain firsthand experience of a real, multidimensional, open and progressive China, and let the Chinese language become a companion in their growth.