Five hundred Strasbourg schoolchildren took over the Council of Europe's main amphitheatre yesterday for a lesson with a difference on tolerance and anti-racism.
Strasbourg-born artist and author Tomi Ungerer treated them to a presentation of three of his children's books, featuring characters such as Flix the dog (born to cat parents) and Otto the teddy bear (owned by a Jewish boy who survived Nazism.) Mr Ungerer, who lives in Co Cork, was recently appointed a goodwill ambassador for children and education by the Council of Europe.
The informal event was a prelude to the opening session of the European Conference Against Racism, attended by around 500 delegates.
The gathering started with live music. The children were then introduced to members of the local football team, Racing Club de Strasbourg. The mixed-race club has been a target of racist opponents who have disrupted matches and daubed graffiti outside its premises.
As Mr Ungerer read from Flix, the children, aged eight to 15, swivelled in the large blue seats usually reserved for parliamentarians at the Palais de L'Europe. Mr Ungerer was born in Strasbourg in eastern France and lived through the annexation of the Alsace region by the Germans in 1940. He told the children that he, like Flix, has had problems because of his accent.
"This dog is me in ways," he said. "I speak French with a German accent, German with a French accent and English with an Irish accent."
In his role as ambassador, Mr Ungerer is championing a project to have a series of bilingual children's books available in schools throughout Europe on themes promoting social values.