Artistic director of the Young Lions festival Nevenka Koprivšek was honoured with the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters award for her "excellent knowledge of France's most prominent artists", which is reflected in the programme of the Young Lions international festival of performing arts, the embassy said.

Koprivšek received the lower, Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters title for her efforts already in 2011.

Two other Slovenians, translator Suzana Koncut and the founder of the Hyperion publisher Andrej Medved, also received the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters awards today.

Koncut, a "great connoisseur of French literature and a devoted lover of French theatre", has translated some of the most challenging texts of French classical prose, humanities and philosophy.

Medved was meanwhile honoured, because his publishing house Hyperion has issued works by France's greatest thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Julia Kristeva.

As curator and artistic director of the Coastal Galleries, which often presents modern French art, he has contributed to the galleries becoming a reference point of modern art in Slovenia, the embassy said.