What does it mean for an intermediary city to act on the global stage?
On Monday, June 1, 2026, on the eve of the Urban7 International Mayors’ Summit, the City of Nancy and the City Diplomacy Lab invite the public to Nancy, International Actor — a roundtable on the international action of a mid-sized French city and the diverse actors who carry it forward. Free registration required.
A city’s international action is rarely the work of a single foreign-affairs office. It is most effective — and reaches furthest — when it actively enlists a wide range of public and private actors, and ultimately the energies of the local community itself. Universities and research labs, museums and cultural institutions, businesses and professional networks, metropolitan governments and civil-society organizations: each becomes a thread in a city’s presence abroad. This is what active internationalization looks like in practice — not a diplomacy delegated to specialists, but one woven into the everyday life of a city’s institutions and its people.
The first panel, “What Is Being Done,” maps Nancy’s international engagement through the actors who actually carry it: the Métropole du Grand Nancy, working internationally on participatory democracy, youth, and the environment; a water-and-sanitation solidarity project in Gorée, Senegal, built on the Oudin-Santini mechanism together with GESCOD; the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy’s restoration of Noh masks in collaboration with Kanazawa, Japan; a biomaterials and prosthetics project at the Institut Jean Lamour tied to Ukraine; and the globe-spanning gastronomic diplomacy of the Nancy-born World’s French Restaurant label. Taken together, they show internationalization as a collective endeavor — and a two-way street, in which what a city gives to its partners returns to enrich the city itself.
The second panel turns to the strategic dimension: how an intermediary city plugs into European and global networks to amplify and sustain that local momentum. The conversation moves from bilateral ties with European cities (AFCCRE) and with cities of the Global South (Cités Unies France), to multilateral climate action (ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability) and global democratic advocacy (Global Parliament of Mayors). Antoine Le Solleuz, Deputy Mayor of Nancy, closes the panel by drawing these threads into a single, coherent international vision for the city. The throughline is clear: active internationalization is broadest and most durable when it mobilizes many hands — public and private alike — and channels local energy outward while bringing the world’s lessons home.
The roundtable is moderated by Dr. Lorenzo Kihlgren Grandi, Founding Director of the City Diplomacy Lab.
— Speakers —
Panel 1 — “What Is Being Done”: Nancy on the international stage, through its local actors
- Éric Pensalfini, Vice-President of the Métropole du Grand Nancy and Mayor of Saint-Max
- Gaëlle Le Barbu, GESCOD
- Marion Pacot, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy
- Dr. Jean-Philippe Jehl, Institut Jean Lamour, Université de Lorraine
- Carol Bussy, National Vice-President of the AFMR, in charge of the international World’s French Restaurant label
Panel 2 — Strategic Aspects: Nancy in European and global networks
- Christophe Moreux, Director General, AFCCRE
- Representative of Cités Unies France
- Matthew Bach, Regional Director for Europe, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, and Co-Director of the Urban7 Secretariat
- Rainer Kern, Director, Global Parliament of Mayors
- Antoine Le Solleuz, Deputy Mayor of Nancy
Moderator: Dr. Lorenzo Kihlgren Grandi, Founding Director, City Diplomacy Lab
— Practical Information —
- 📍 Venue: Grands Salons, Nancy City Hall (Hôtel de Ville de Nancy)
- 🗓 Date & time: Monday, June 1, 2026, 6:00 p.m. CEST
- 🗣 Working language: French
- 🎟 Attendance: Free, registration required
The event is part of the Urban7 2026 process, for which the City Diplomacy Lab serves as Scientific Coordinator.