<span style="color: #222222;">The French Embassy in the UAE today opened a representative office of the French space agency in Abu Dhabi (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiale, CNES) to be the first foreign space agency opening a representative office in the UAE.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The announcement was made on the occasion of the visit of Jean-Yves Le Gall, President of the CNES, to the UAE, during a ceremony in  Abu Dhabi in presence of Mohammed Al Ahbabi, Director-General of the UAE Space Agency.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The announcement is a result of the deepening ties between France and the UAE in the field of space exploration. In April 2015, a year after the creation of the UAE Space agency, France had been the first foreign country to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the agency and since that time, space cooperation became one of the pillars of strategic dialogue between the two countries.</span><br />