The Centre aims to reconfigure French and Francophone studies by challenging the conventional binary oppositions between 'centre' and 'margins' on the one hand and 'high' and 'low' cultures on the other. Cultural studies offers a variety of conceptual and methodological tools for undertaking this task. Applying cultural studies approaches to French studies has the effect of unsettling the notion of a canon of major works whilst opening texts out to a range of different readings and proposing new interdisciplinary approaches to the connections between culture and society.

In tandem with this, the advent of Francophone studies has broadened the traditional scope of French studies beyond metropolitan France, though without necessarily challenging the hierarchical opposition between centre and margins in quite the same way. The Centre aims to conjoin these twin energies, since a dialogue between them holds out the exciting prospect of both mutual enrichment and a radical rethinking of teaching and research in French and Francophone studies in the UK.