FPCP_2003, Flavor Physics and CP Violation, is the second in a series of conferences, the first one in 2002 at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA, USA. The third will be held in 2004 in South Korea. FPCP came about as the result of the merging of two major high-energy physics events, the annual Heavy Flavor Physics Conference (founded by Klaus Schubert) and the biannual International Conference on B Physics and CP Violation (founded by A.I. (Tony) Sanda).

FPCP_2003 will be held June 3rd - 6th, 2003 on the former campus of Ecole Polytechnique, in the heart of the "Quartier Latin", in Paris, France and is open to all experimental and theoretical physicists interested in the field. The "Carré des Sciences" organization, located on the Descartes site within the Ministry of Research and Technology, will host the Conference. You will find the entrance at 25, rue de la Montagne Sainte Geneviève in the 5th arrondissement. For security reasons, every participant must wear the Conference badge at all times. Organizational staff will be at the entrance hall of the Ministry with a list of registered attendees to welcome participants and distribute badges. Please have a photo ID (passport, etc), with you, for the duration of the Conference.

The Conference has an all-plenary format. Poster submissions are encouraged and related questions and discussion will take place during the breaks. Additionally, if you would like to contribute a paper to FPCP_2003, please send it in postscript or pdf format to the Conference Staff (fpcp2003@in2p3.fr). You may also send the URL address of the paper so that we can place a link to it on our web site. We will be providing facilities for speakers to upload presentation materials and conference papers to our web site and we encourage the preparation of talks in a machine-readable form in order to facilitate this. PDF will be the favored format. More information for speakers on provided facilities will be posted soon on our web site.

Conference sessions will be held in the Poincaré Amphitheatre and the Poster exhibits will be in a separate room, called "La Rotonde". Coffee breaks will take place in an adjacent hall. In addition, sit-down luncheons will be served on site to allow for Conference flow.

On Tuesday morning, the registration, along with a welcome coffee, will take place from 8:30am to 10:00am. The general session will start immediately after and will continue until the luncheon. The Welcome Reception will be on Tuesday from 5:30pm to 7:00pm at the Conference site. On Wednesday evening, June 4th at 8:00pm, Professor Hubert Reeves will be giving a lecture entitled "Où est passée l'antimatière ?" (Where has the antimatter gone ?) at the Sorbonne University. This talk, which will be in French and open to the general public, is being sponsored by FPCP_2003. The Conference Banquet will be on Thursday evening, June 5th at 8:30pm, at the "Maison des Polytechniciens" (former Hotel de Poulpry, built in 1640) and located at 12, rue de Poitiers in the 7th arrondissement (near the Musée d'Orsay). We expect the Conference to conclude at 5:00pm, Friday June 6th.

The Welcome Reception, coffee breaks, the four luncheons and the Banquet are included in the fee for conference participants. There will be no adjustment in participation fee for missing a day, luncheon or the Banquet. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.

Your Registration will be processed only after you have provided your payment information by completing the Payment Form. The participation fee is 325 euros. Please also register any guests or family to allow them to access the site of the Conference with a badge. The cost for each guest is 40 euros and includes the Welcome Reception and the Conference Banquet.

Registration and fee payment are available on our web site. May 1st 2003 is the deadline for registration. Since any payment is prohibited within the site of the Ministry of Research (site of the Conference), all fees, for participants as well as for guests, must be done in advance during the Registration process. Be aware that your registration will be confirmed only upon receipt of your participation fee - your name will then appear on the Conference participant list.

Because June is a very busy month in Paris, the number of hotel rooms available to us is quite limited. Therefore, it is very important that you reserve your room directly with the hotel of your choice as soon as possible. Please refer to the list of suggested hotels on our web site and mention that you are with the FPCP_2003 Conference.

Close to the Conference Center (2 minutes walking distance) is the Paris' Panthéon whose crypt contains the remains of many "Grands Hommes" like Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie, as well as Rousseau, Voltaire, and Victor Hugo. In 1851, the French astronomer, Jean Bernard Léon Foucault installed a 67m long pendulum under the dome of the Panthéon. As we all know, this wonderfully simple and ingenious experiment triggered, all over the world, an enormous amount of literature (scientific and otherwise) together with many related experiments. In 1995, the 28 kg iron sphere of the original Foucault's pendulum (seen on the FPCP_ 2003 Poster) was reinstalled in the Panthéon where it can be viewed everyday from 10:00am till 6:00pm.

Please refer any additional questions or concerns to Conference Staff at fpcp2003@in2p3.fr. More information, for instance on the proceedings and on the audiovisual equipment provided for speakers, will be given in Bulletin#2.

For the Local Organizing Committee,