Title:A trip to Paris with the GU Club of France

A trip to… is a web series that takes you around the world to meet Hoyas who have found community with one another beyond the Hilltop.

Based in Paris, France, the Georgetown University Club of France is a chartered club of the Georgetown University Alumni Association (GUAA) managed and operated by alumni volunteers. 

Meet Peter Tanous (C’60, Parent’87, ’92), the Club of France’s founding member, and William ‘Bill’ Holmberg (B’97, Parent’28), the club’s current vice president, and learn how Hoyas have found community in Paris for decades. 

How did the Georgetown University Club of France come to be?

Tanous: I went to Paris in 1966 to head the Paris office of the brokerage firm Smith Barney. I had lived in Paris as a child and spoke fluent French so I was a natural for it.

Around 1968, a group from Georgetown was coming to Paris and got in touch with me and other alums in the city. They asked me if I’d be willing to start the Georgetown Club of France. After I agreed, the head of the Alumni Association came over for a small number of meetings and dinners to establish the club. Unfortunately, we stopped meeting in 1971 when I came back to the States. 

When the current Georgetown Club of France was formed in 1991, they assumed that there had never been a Georgetown Club of France. Until Bill got in touch with me, nobody knew there actually was a Georgetown Club of France 50 years earlier.

Are there any notable events the club held that you remember fondly?

Tanous: With 10 or 15 members there were not going to be any spontaneous events, but we did have dinners, as I recall. Various officials from the university or from the Alumni Association would come over and we’d have events for them.

Many of the events were sponsored by Georgetown, or the visitors from Georgetown who came over, and because I was fluent in French, I’d go around with them and translate.

Paris in the 60s was a wonderful place except for one year, 1968, when the entire country closed down in a near revolution that eventually caused the downfall of President Charles de Gaulle. Everything came to a standstill, so it was pretty bad. Otherwise, it was great. We’d have smallish events, but we’d always enjoy getting together.

Holmberg: After a three-year term as president of the GU Club of France, I am currently vice president supporting Alexandra Richards (G’99). I was particularly proud when the club earned the Virtual Club of the Year event in 2021 for our pandemic-era virtual debate between the leaders of Democrats abroad France and Republicans Overseas which was a nice surprise and kicked off the effort to record live events when possible and offer live and in person events throughout the year going forward.

Like many international clubs, we aim to offer three to four quality events in our capital city per year. We review constituencies by school to tailor content to them. In 2023, our events addressed the primary interest of alumni in legal professions because 42% of our club members hold either J.D. or LLM degrees. We created and delivered two events in exceptional spaces for those interested in diplomacy and international politics.  

The event “Transatlantic Challenges: The View from Paris,” followed my outreach efforts to contacts at the U.S. embassy in Paris to engage the minister counsellors for economic and political affairs to propose an informal exchange of views and discussion over cocktails and food until late evening. 

Our capstone event was held in coordination with many university clubs with chapters in France to listen to Seth David Radwell present the key findings in his book American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation. The talk was moderated by Yannick Mireur, who offered his expertise as a distinguished French specialist on the U.S.

What makes the Club of France special?

Tanous: In the late 1960s, there was no easy way to communicate by text or phone so getting together was a lot more special. Back then, there were no cell phones or texting. People wrote old fashioned letters, so you didn’t have the constant contact with your classmates, or roots, when you were in a foreign country. Fifty years ago, the notion of a FaceTime call would have been incredible. Back then, you could phone across the Atlantic, but you didn’t, because it was outrageously expensive. My point is that it meant so much to be together, and to talk about our experiences at Georgetown, because there were no other means of communication.

 Holmberg: The majority of our alumni live and work in and around Paris. It’s home to embassies, NGOs, multi-national institutions such as UNESCO, local offices for IFC/World Bank, and others. Paris also has a rich, diverse set of commercial, cultural, and governmental agencies that surely attracts our alumni to work here and then contribute to our community. Like in any major city, there is turnover, but within the older generation I see many familiar faces tend to attend our events regularly.

In France, our club benefits from access to the American University Clubs of France, or AUC France, which is an umbrella organization federating the club leaders of some 40 U.S. universities to share events and host two special ones they organize themselves: the annual Thanksgiving dinner, hosted at École Militaire, and the late spring cocktail held at the Talleyrand Centre, in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy. 

The combination of the attractive pull to the city and its environs for alumni and the access to the broader U.S. expat community with university ties through AUC offers a compelling and unique combination to current and future members.

Do you have any tips you have for Hoyas who are visiting or relocating to France?

Holmberg: I would suggest alumni and students visit the Georgetown Alumni Club of France website to read more on the history, and find links to the Whatsapp group, Linkedin pages, events, and more.