Government to pay for 10,000 to study in France

China will send 10,000 students funded by the government to study in France in the course of the next five years, as part of an initiative to continue deepening Sino-French ties, said Cen Jianjun, director of the Ministry of Education's international cooperation and exchange department, on Friday.

The program will be officially launched after the second meeting on China-France high-level cultural and people-to-people exchanges, to be held in Beijing on May 15.

The exchange program was established last year and has achieved much in cultural and people-to-people exchanges, Cen said. Particularly impressive is the increasing number of student exchanges, he added.