NORTHERN business chiefs were keeping their heads on Saturday night when they remembered how others had lost theirs.

Guests at a Bastille Day dinner saw ambitious plans unveiled by hosts the French Business Council (FBC) to bring together the region's artistic and cultural communities to improve export prospects.

Senior figures from industry in the region joined many of the growing band of French nationals working in the North-East at the Durham Castle event, sponsored by Newcastle's Gill Airways, UK partner of Air France.

In a new move for the annual event, guests enjoyed a theatre production about the French Revolution, organised by Thatre Sans Frontires, of Hexham, Tyne Valley.

Andrew Robinson, FBC chairman and French Consul for the North, said: "The FBC has achieved enormous results in helping small and medium sized enterprises to learn how to do business in France.

"For our future programme, we have identified three key economic areas - the knowledge-based economy, the aerospace and defence sector, and the cultural and creative industries."

The council's efforts in the knowledge-based sector, supported by European grant aid, have already led to the creation of Club Sophia UK, in Newcastle, providing a key link between the region's high-tech industries and Sophia Antipolis, Europe's largest science park, near Cannes.

Action for Culture and Community in Regional Development will aim to use the region's creative sector as a tool to improve understanding of French culture by SMEs hoping to do business in the French-speaking world.