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Alioune Sène joined Senghor’s Cabinet in 1960 when Senegal became independent. He was Ambassador to Congo, Egypt and Lebanon between 1963 and 1967 and made a brief come back to the Cabinet before being appointed Minister of Culture in 1970. He remained in this function till 1978, then he joined back the diplomatic service as the Ambassador of Senegal to Switzerland and the United Nations till 1993. In 1988, he presided over the Commission for Human Rights and proved himself as a man of dialogue, openmindness and conciliation.In this interview, he gives his own appreciation of Senghor, the poet, the thinker and the politician whose vision of Senegal, Africa and the world is dominated by Negritude. Negritude and literature or Negritude and politics ? For Alioune Sène, these are two aspects of the quest to recover dignity and freedom. He describes how Senghor owes to Negritude his own concept of socialism which led him to create institutions based on African culture. He subtly transmit Senghor’s humanism which inspired the founders of the African Society of Culture and which today could help gather energies to evade all traps that slow down the progress of Africa.