The Embassy of France invited crowds of guests to a New Year’s reception it hosted on Friday night for its Canadian friends and partners from a wide range of industries — including economic growth, arts and culture, hospitality, education, and foreign diplomacy.
Ambassador Michel Miraillet kept his remarks in the Grand Salon very brief as he welcomed a “melting pot” of people to the party. He light-heartedly expressed his hope that they would all get along. Of course, cultivating camaraderie comes naturally when you’re literally rubbing elbows with one another.
Guests included Sébastien Carrière, new chief of protocol of Canada for Global Affairs, and senior protocol advisor Vicken Koundakjian; French-born Sylvie Bragard, president of UFE (Union des Français de l’Étranger) Ottawa-Gatineau; and Laurence Schaller, director of government and diplomatic sales at the Fairmont Château Laurier. The historic hotel is owned by Paris-based Accor — one of the largest global hotel chains in the world.
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Also spotted was Invest Ottawa’s Inês Gomes, market director of global expansion into Europe and Brazil. She was there with her husband, Stan Razavi, who scored his own invitation through his work with Global Affairs.
Vincent Bonnefille, headmaster of Ottawa-based French-language private school Lycée Claudel, was at the reception with some of his colleagues. With nearly 1,000 students, it’s the only school in Ontario with full accreditation from the AEFE, a public agency that assures the quality of schools teaching the French national curriculum outside of France.
Ottawa Film Commissioner Sandrine Pechels de Saint Sardos, who was born and raised in Paris, works closely with the French embassy and its media and creative industries attaché, Frédéric Chambon. The embassy is a partner in Prime Time, she said of the upcoming industry conference for leaders in media production, broadcasting, television, feature film and media policy, taking place at The Westin hotel.
Jason St-Laurent praised the embassy for playing a role in boosting the arts scene. He’s the curator at SAW Gallery, a non-profit artist-run space located at Arts Court. “The cultural attachés associated with this embassy are the best in the country, they really are,” said St-Laurent. “They take cultural diplomacy seriously.”
Added Pechels de Saint Sardos: “We really are lucky to have their support for the arts and cultural community.”
Representing Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa Culinary Arts Institute was its general manager, Victoria Lehman. The embassy hosted a ceremony last June for the training school’s graduating chefs and has offered to do so again this year, said Lehman.
Le Cordon Bleu, an iconic hospitality institution, is deeply intertwined with French culinary heritage. It was founded in Paris, in 1895, and is owned by André Cointreau of the French liquor dynasty. To have the ceremony at the embassy was “phenomenal,” she said. “It was such a nice experience for all of our students.”
For francophones, Francophiles, and everyone in between, the embassy’s Bastille Day celebration is one of the best summer parties in town. This year, the event is scheduled for Sunday, July 14. It will be the perfect prelude to France’s 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games — the largest event ever organized in the country. The last time the Summer Olympics were held in Paris was 100 years ago. Ottawa residents now have the option of hopping on a direct Air France flight from Ottawa to Paris to be a spectator (or, in an even better scenario, a competing athlete).
Looking further ahead, France has officially submitted a bid to hold the 2030 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in the French Alps. It’s hosted the winter games three times — at Chamonix in 1924, Grenoble in 1968 and Albertville in 1992.
