With a current network of over 120 officially twinned towns, cities and villages linking Scotland and France together, the 21st century Auld Alliance rests on a flourishing civic basis. It's at this grassroots, community level - be it through such formalised arrangements, or simply by welcoming visitors to our own local pub, ceilidh or workplace - that apparent barriers of 'foreignness' are most easily and rewardingly dissolved, and common ground identified.
From the northern tip of Scotland to the very south of France, we all of us live amongst families, neighbours, friends, fellow workers, fellow consumers, fellow parents, residents, concerned citizens. . . We are, in other words, all members of communities, each with a share in this universal mesh of relationships - and one of the great things about communities, in today's high-tech global environment, is that they're far less bound by geography.
A fan of Shetland music in St Tropez can catch the rays on the terrace simultaneously with the latest fiddle tunes via the Internet, meanwhile chatting online with native devotees in Lerwick; a chess-loving wine buff in Speyside can vie for checkmate online with a whisky connoisseur in Bordeaux.
We hope to carry many such stories of the real-life Entente Cordiale today, on our accompanying Scottish website, along with news of twin-town and other community exchanges.
