Tsinghua University, China's leading university over scientific education, launches its first alumni association in France on Wednesday.

Tsinghua University will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2011, the association established in Paris marks a great step of Tsinghua's development, the deputy schoolmaster Chen Xu said at the launching meeting.

The association has confirmed over 160 Tsinghua alumni in France till now, most of who came to the country after 2000, Wang Shanjin, the Executive Director of the association said to Xinhua.

Tsinghua Alumni Association in France is the fourth one in Europe, following Britain, Germany and Netherland, and the 190th around the world.

Tsinghua University was established in 1911 in Beijing.

(Xinhua News Agency October 8, 2009)