We offer him our warmest congratulations.

Matthieu Séguéla is the winner of the 29th annual Shibusawa-Claudel Prize, awarded by a jury of academics, diplomats and the representative of the daily Yomiuri newspaper (2). The jury met in Paris on 22 June 2012 and chose to award the prize to the teacher-researcher (1) for his doctoral thesis Georges Clemenceau and the Far East.

Mattieu Séguéla, who was supervised by Professor Maurice Vaïsse, defended his PhD thesis at Sciences Po in 2011, before a jury presided over by Professor Jean-Noël Jeanneney. He received a “Very Honourable mention with the congratulations of the jury.”)

The Shibusawa-Claudel Prize, created in 1984 by the Mainichi newspaper, has been run since 2008 by the Yomiuri newspaper. The Prize is named for the financier Shibusawa Eichi (3) and the ambassador Paul Claudel (4), the founders of the Maison franco-japonaise, institutions created in 1924 to develop the cultural and scientific erlations between the two countries.

The Shibusawa-Claudel Prize (5) is awarded annually for a French book or academic work on Japan, and aims to encourage exchanges between the two countries.

The award ceremony will take place at the residence of the Ambassador of Japan in Paris, in autumn 2012.

Contact : MS Rena KANO, Yomiuri Shimbun, 32, Avenue de l’Opéra, 75002 Paris 01 44 94 94 94
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(1) Matthieu Séguéla is a professor of history-geography at the Lycée Français International in Tokyo, part of the Agence française pour l’enseignement français à l’étranger (AEFE) network.
 (2) Founded in 1974, the Yomiuri Shimbun is the oldest daily newspaper in Japan. With a circulation of 10 million, it is the most sold newspaper on the planet. It’s readership in Japan is estimated at 26 million people.
 (3)  Shibusawa Eichi (1840-1931) was one of the greatest modernises of Japan during the Meiji and Taisho era, founder of the Bank of Japan, industrialist and philanthropist. He was the first president of the administration council of the Fondation de la Maison franco-japonaise. He is remembered as “the father of Japanese capitalism.”
(4) Paul Claudel (1868-1955) was a sramatist, poet, essayist and diplomat. He was the French ambassador to Tokyo from 1921 to 1927. Elected to the Académie Française in 1946, he was nicknamed “the poet-ambassador.”