 If everybody wants to be seated, we will commence. Good morning all, what an exciting time to celebrate a bunch of stuff when celebrating the new honorary consul of France to Vermont. But also to celebrate all of you, I look around and I look at all the faces and the people that have been so much part of this whole movement for the last 10 years. And it's kind of exciting because as I talked to Marie-Claude earlier, we have brought together a lot of constituencies in this French connection. When you think about it, France is responsible for Quebec. They're responsible for having a United States of America. And we are here to celebrate what is now 40% of our culture in Chittenden County is French. And we all go back and we have these wonderful connections. And I look around all the people that I've worked with for well over a decade now. And I look at the exciting moments in time of bringing this French connection together with the state and what we've accomplished in Vermont and Quebec. I look at having spent some wonderful moments with four consul generals of France and developing connections with Enfleur to do some amazing bestowal of Legion of Honors to people that were as old as 100 that helped liberate France. So we helped France doing World War II. They helped us to the Revolutionary War, but we've continued this cultural and this education in this political and artistic way. If you look at what we've done with Enfleur, with art, with education, Moreau was there. We've celebrated our connection to our beautiful city. You're gonna hear from their mayor. So I wanna just celebrate everything that we started way over a decade ago in that chapter. And I look forward to the next chapter, which I know will even be better when I look at all the things that we've created together in a fun concept. The Honoré consul is here from New Hampshire, which is wonderful. And we have such a beautiful French connection to Quebec as well. There's over a million and a half people that come down from Quebec. French speaking, we've promoted it with Burlington. We have over $100 million of connections between what we've done. Doreen has brought down some amazing artists, both from France, artistically, and both from Canada. So I love the way we've all kind of combined this together and brought it together, which we're really delighted. I'd like to introduce to you now our mayor, Mero Weinberg, who has had a amazing, he's been an amazing support for the whole time I've been involved for 10 years. Supporting us and celebrating us and even had an opportunity to go to the beautiful city of Enfleur, which by the way is where Champlain sailed from to develop Quebec and then came down and discovered Lake Champlain. So there's the kind of all the triangles that we're connecting all the dots. But Mero, thank you for your support and I'd love to invite you up for a couple words. So good morning and bienvenue Burlington to everyone. It's exciting to be having this event once again. We've had over the last decade, a number, almost an annual convening like this, but like everything else that's been disrupted by the pandemic and it is exciting to be able to gather once again and do so safely as a result of the remarkable efforts of the city of Burlington, the state of Vermont, the entire community. We know we're in one of the safest cities in the country as a result of the collective effort. It's my pleasure to welcome all of you here and especially want to say a special thanks and welcome to the console general. And thank you for being back here and spending the entire day. I understand the console general is going to be meeting with our superintendent and talking about a multi-year effort to expand the education, the teaching of French in our schools and I'm looking forward to spending more time later in the day. I think it's so early in the morning or is it early in the morning or late in the day? That I'm not sure we're going to have my counterpart, Mayor Michelle Lamar actually with us live, but he will be giving a statement when I'm done and it has really been a privilege to serve alongside Mayor Lamar now for more than nine years. Both of us have been in office the entire time. I believe he's far outlasted me. He's pushing 20 years now, I think, right? And it's really been a special connection that personally I've been able to make with Mayor Lamar and it parallels this long-standing and really unique sister city relationship where, yes, as Ernie mentioned, this historic roots of this relationship go back more than 400 years now. Today marks an important opportunity to recognize and celebrate the ties that so many in our community have to the Francophone world, the tremendous impact that French culture has had on, on the city of Burlington, in the ongoing cultural and economic relationships that link us. In particular, we are really happy today to be celebrating two individuals, Lise Verneau and Ernie Pomerleau, as their names suggest, their names alone being an indication of that French connection have contributed to our city and to the relationships between our city and our neighbors in Canada and overseas in France. Burlington is tremendously honored to once again have a community member and part of the city team, a woman who has contributed great service to the city's police department and fire department. We once again have a community member accept the prestigious role of honorary counsel to France. And I am confident that Lise will, as she has long done, continue to the further the bonds of friendship between Vermont and France. Lise has demonstrated a commitment and ability to advance our shared goals of cross-cultural trust and understanding in her leadership of the Burlington Own Floor Sister City Initiative. And, you know, I will just, as Ernie has already mentioned, it was really one of the highlights of the last nine years to be able to experience first hand that friendship as part of a delegation that went to Own Floor several years ago and that involved both an artistic and cultural and even economic element to that event. The city of Burlington welcomes many visitors from France, Quebec and Canada, and other parts of the French speaking world each year. Of course, we haven't welcomed quite as many as we'd like over the last 18 months, but that's starting to change. And as we continue to move forward from the pandemic, we look forward to welcoming them back to the Burlington in the days, weeks and months ahead. Thank you all for joining us today. It's an honor to have you here in Burlington, both in person and virtually, and I look forward, very much forward to our continued partnership in the years ahead. Thank you. And I'd like to invite the color guard in if they would be ready to enter. And now we have a little video from the mayor as Maroh had mentioned. Michelle Lamar is a gentleman, a sweet, sweet person, and he's very funny. He was here, we've spent time with him there. He could not be more gracious. We started this program shortly after the Quadcentennial, where it brought all of us together, the state, the city, Quebec and France, as to one. And it only made sense to celebrate this cohesiveness with where Champlain had come from. And we've met with him several times. So I'm going to invite Richard Gleishap, who has been very active on the On Flour Committee, and Alliance Française, and is our French translator. It's always good to have somebody from France translating your English, because we don't do so good sometimes. So anyway, and then we're going to play Mayor Lamar's pace, and then Richard will translate. I know your deep culture, your love for France, your French cooking talents, and I hope that after these beautiful ceremonies at the Burlington Salons, you will understand all your friends who supported you thanks to a very beautiful dinner you know the secret. That's it, tonight or another. In any case, for this important nomination, I wanted to give you a big thank you to all of you who supported me. Thank you very much. For this important nomination, I wanted to be here as Mayor of On Flour, and as the inhabitants of On Flour, and this territory to congratulate you. But above all, as a friend, and I hope to see you again and see our friends from Burlington very soon. Congratulations. Good morning to our Vermont friends, and more specifically to our Burlington friends, and most of all to Liz Verona. My dear Liz, I want to congratulate you for this magnificent appointment as an honorary consul of France for Vermont. I trust in your ability to represent France, a beautiful country, in general, but also that in this position, you'll always have a special thought for On Flour, being part of the sister city committee between Burlington and On Flour. I know the depths of your culture and love for France, as well as your talents for French cooking. I trust that after this ceremony, you will treat all the friends who supported you with a magnificent dinner. For this very important appointment, I wanted to be present and congratulate you as the Mayor of On Flour, and in the name of all of On Flour citizens, but more importantly also as a friend. I'm looking forward to seeing you and all our Burlington friends soon. Congratulations, Liz. He really is a delightful human being, and so is Moral. I mean, let's just put... Didn't do any comparison out of Wacko. So I'm going to invite Peter van Tijn up, but before I do that, I just wanted to say that Peter is part of the educational community with St. Mike's, and he'll be representing not only himself because he's on the Flour board and a lot of other initiatives, but he's representing President Lorraine Starrat. But at the same time, when I look around in the work that we've done with Champlain College named after Champlain, and I look at the University of Vermont and all of its interactions, we're all kind of a holistic environment here in a small community where we interact. But education is a really key instrumental part of our initiatives with the French connection, but we have been supported by St. Mike's immensely and by Champlain and UVM. Peter van Tijn, I'd love you to come up and say a couple of words. Thank you. It is an honor to be here and to have been invited to represent in part the educational community as well as to be here on my own behalf as a member of the Enfleur sister city committee with that relationship between Burlington and Enfleur and Normandy, France, as well as a representative for Dr. Lorraine Starrat, President of St. Michael's College. I'd like to begin by also thanking the outgoing honorary council, Ernie Pamelo, for having served with such aplomb and grace and generosity, eloquence and zeal for so many years. So thank you, Ernie. Having had a chance to work for a number of years now with Lise on the Enfleur initiative, I have every confidence that she will continue to bring those same qualities. There's a well-known expression in French similar to when we have in English. The French version is plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sometimes that's used to say things should change more. Here, though, I think it's appropriate to say that I think there'll be a great deal of continuity in this change of person in the role. Again, bringing those same skills of generosity, efficiency and efficacy to the job. And I do see colleagues from UVM and think also of colleagues from Champlain on the level of education. And certainly, to those of us teaching French, whether it's at the elementary, middle school, high school or university levels, it's of the utmost importance to us that locally in this region and nationally throughout this country students understand the importance of intercultural connections and competencies that foreign languages are valued as a means of communication and exchange between cultures and peoples. And of course, that the special and unique relationship between France and the Francophone world, Quebec and other parts of the Francophone world are maintained and strengthened, fostered and explored here in Vermont and in Burlington specifically. So thank you for this opportunity and I really look forward to seeing all that Lees will do over the next years in this new role. Thank you, Peter. Representing Governor Scott, but also representing yourself, Lindsay Curley is the Secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development and has been instrumental in connecting all the economic and the commerce with Quebec, with France and everything in Vermont. So we would invite you up. Lindsay, thank you for being here. Hello, Bonjour. Thank you for that introduction. As Mr. Pramilarov said, on behalf of Governor Scott, it is my honor to welcome back to Vermont, Consul General Montray, and it is also my honor to be here today, Lees, to congratulate you on this appointment, this position that stewards the connection between Vermont and France and Quebec and also express so much gratitude to you, Mr. Pramilarov, for your many years of representation and serving Vermont and promoting the French heritage and culture and certainly commerce in our state. I had to throw that in. Just two years ago, both Mr. Pramilarov and Mr. Pramilarov were knighted by the country of France. I hope I get this right. Mr. Pramilarov into the French Legion of Honor. Is that correct? And Mr. Pramilarov into the French National Order of Merit. One-third of the population in Vermont can claim French or French-Canadian ancestry. 355 years ago in 1666, France claimed Vermont as part of New France and erected Fort St. Anne in Isle-O-Mont. The commerce industry then was the fur trade. Since then, the relationship with France has obviously grown to be a very diverse and rich exchange of culture and products and ideas. France today remains an important partner and investor to Vermont. French-owned businesses and corporations support 1,400 jobs in our state. Air Le Quid and Sedexo are some of the French companies that play an important role in our communities. In 2020, Vermont exported $37 million of goods to France, and the state received $54 million in French products. These products range from electronics to health and beauty supplies to wine and liquor. We are proud of our long history with France and the Quebecois descendants within our state and just across our northern border, and we are fortunate that Miss Verona will fill this position with a strong knowledge and commitment to serving the French-speaking people and heritage here in Vermont. So again, I want to thank you both for your service to our state and to building this really important relationship. Thank you. We're very fortunate to live in such a beautiful state but a small state where the interaction with the state community and the citizens of Burlington and the like, it's just, it's easy to, and the congressional delegation. Patrick and Marcel headed up a delegation to Quebec. They've been extremely involved, and Patrick and Marcel came to our first trip to Enfleur. So we've worked with Bernie and Peter, but it's just, it's been a real big family for a decade, and we could not be happier. I now am pleased to... Arnold is the... Montay is the fourth person that I've had the privilege to work with out of the consulate, and unfortunately because of the pandemic, we have not had a chance to interact as much as I would have hoped to, but I'm going to now be at least as wingman, and so we're not going anywhere, and I will look forward to our continued evolution in this process. But I would love to invite the Consul General of France to New England to come up and share the transition. Thank you very much, Arnie. Dear Mayor, Mayor Weinberger, dear Secretary Lindsay Curley, let me also acknowledge the presence here of the Quebec Delegate, Marie-Claude Franckard. Thank you so much for being here, Marie-Claude. It's a great pleasure to see you again, and also our honorary consul to New Hampshire, Adèle Bouffarbecker. Adèle, it's great to see you, and I think, Arnie, you said the word, it's like a big family, and it's wonderful to see all of you today gathered together to celebrate the connections between France and Vermont, but also the great role that both Arnie Pomelo and Liz Verrano played to develop those links. So today is a very moving ceremony because we could see one former honorary consul giving the way to another one, and at the same time there's this deep feeling of continuity. Last time I was here in this beautiful city hall was in 2019 to bestow the insignia of the Legion of Honor to Arnie Pomelo and the insignia of the Order of Merit to Liz Verrano, as you recall sexually. Who would have thought by then that a pandemic would occur that would completely freeze the relationships of human exchanges between the two shores of the Atlantic, but yet both Arnie Pomelo and Liz Verrano managed to keep a vibrant relationship with your French cousins, if I may. You managed to develop the links with the city of Enfleur, this great sister city agreement that you created, that you developed, and it is now one of the most beautiful sister city agreements we have between France and New England because of this history you recalled, the fact that Champlain left Enfleur to finally reach this lake Champlain, this beautiful lake Champlain that we see here in Burlington. Your accomplishments to promote those links have been extraordinary over the years. In 2017 you had this incredible seminar about France, Quebec, Francophonie and Vermont and how all those links could expand and create more exchanges throughout the state. So thank you so much for keeping alive these links and for opening new avenues for our cooperation and our exchanges because the relationship between France and Vermont are based on history, on a cultural tradition that we share and we cherish on the Francophone roots of these states that are very well alive, but it's also a project for the future. I think Vermont and Burlington in particular are an incredible place to develop this Francophone culture and space that we all would like to strengthen. Your proximity with Quebec is an extraordinary asset for this region given the incredible success Quebec has had over the years. I won't speak for Quebec as I'm not a representative of Quebec but it's incredible to see how Quebec has expanded in all areas and is now one of the most innovative places. In parallel with France which has had over the last years booming development in the innovation sector and which is now one of the most innovative European states and so all this we can build together based on our common tradition we can open new avenues for cooperation for a bright future, Francophone future and I think this is a great asset for Burlington itself. So let's continue that work and I must say I trust Lise Veronot to continue that work. Lise you have demonstrated all the abilities to be one of the best representatives of France we could imagine for this city given that only after 15 years I decided to have you take over and I think this is a wonderful again it's like a family and we will continue all the good work together. So I came with your diploma as honorary council it says in the name of the president of the French Republic We, Arnaud Mintré, General Consul of France in Boston invested by the decree of June 16, 1976 from the faculty of delegating consular agents in our conscription before, named, committed and delegated Madame Lise Veronot with the title of honorary consul of France she acted under our direction and according to the law of the Republic Dear Lise Veronot, I would like to contribute all the help, assistance and protection to the French and to the French interests in this conscription Thank you so much, all of you for all the joint efforts to make this Burlington, France Burlington en fleurs Vermont, France very vibrant relationship an example for the entire country Thank you so much Now for the next chapter Lise and I go back from the beginning of time as I look around and I see everything that we've all done together as a community Lise would always ask me what we would do next and my answer would be we just have to have fun but Lise was measurably beneficial in keeping the details because I'm not good with details and I'm not a good person and we managed to have both and she was amazing when she took over as chair of the en fleurs committee she did seminars on French connections she was integral in the liaison of expanding the Allianz Francaise so as she would say in all things French I would like to introduce the present standing consul of France to Vermont, Lisa Varna. Ernie, pas mal, Grin. Ernie's a little taller than me. So, thank you, Ernie. I am just honored and to accept, accept, I am accepting now. I am accepting this position and I am honored to do so as honorary council to France in Vermont. Merci beaucoup. You know, I've worked with Ernie for a long time and we could not have done anything without his support. I look forward to a future with his continued support as he's assured me I would have. With that, I can go straight forward and keep moving. Thank you for the confidence you have shown in me in my requesting that I be the next honorary council to France. I am pleased to lend my name and continue building relationships and help promote French initiatives. There are a couple of projects in the works that I'd like to just let everyone know that we're moving forward. We're going to help a World War II Vermont, World War II veteran get submitted for recognition for the Legion of Honor. And we'll announce that to all of you once the process is well underway, working with the Boston Consulate. And again, working with the Boston Consulate, working with Nancy Prescott, who's here today as well, with the Department of Motor Vehicles and Ministry of Interior in Paris, France, on the French License Exchange, reciprocal agreement. I want to thank the representatives of universities and educational institutions, the Burlington High School that's had a relationship with all Fleurus sister city. I see Jim Brand again in the back with their Boy Scouts and Shelburne made a trip to France. There's a lot of work I could list, but I won't, I've already listed in the past, so we'll move forward, but we will do more of all of this going forward at an even higher level working with the state of Vermont. So I want to thank the representatives here today, Lake Champlain Chamber, the members of the All Fleurus sister city, many of them sitting right here, friends and family and the Alliance Francaise of the Lake Champlain region for promoting and participating in French initiatives. I rarely have asked for anything that people didn't just say yes, and I want to thank you for participating at that generous level, your time, your energy, your words, your wisdom, my family who's here today, my husband right here in the front row next to Adele. Thank you, Merci, David, for just bearing with me as I take time from our lives, while I'm trying to have a full-time job with the city of Burlington, the Burlington Fire and Police Department. Thank you to the Honor Guard for being here, as they have been for all the international Francophone, Francophile days, and international flag-raising events that we've done for the last 12 years. So Merci to the ever-changing individuals, but the guard never falters. I want to thank the people here in the room, but also I'm going to look at the camera, mes amis en fleur, mes amis en France, Merci pour tout votre ouvrage que vous avez fait avec moi. C'est un plaisir de travailler avec vous. Je suis excité, tu peux le voir, qu'on va travailler beaucoup des nouvelles affaires ensemble. We are going to work on a lot of new projects to my friends in France. I'm very excited to go into the next chapter, and I want to say just a big thank you for all of you being here today. I feel so well supported. Thank you. Merci beaucoup. This is the scepter, right? This was from all of you, and it was just delivered from Affleur and Allianz Fosse, and all the people that have worked with you so closely and are so excited to see you take over this next chapter. Thank you, merci. We're friends together. And with that, I just want to thank, again, our esteemed visitors that have spoken today, and again, a heartfelt thanks to all of you. Everybody in this room has been engaged in this process, which has really transformed the state, working with Canada and Quebec, working with Council General in Boston and the like. And so it's cultural, it's political, but it's special, it's human, and it brings a different way of art and education and an expansion which only we grow from. So that's a celebration. And with that, we're going to move next door. Everybody's invited to the reception. Where is it? On the patio, perfect. Yeah, so great. Anyway, we all invite you and we can continue and probably have a little French wine or something. Thank you all.