French Ambassador Marie Fontanel hosted last week a reception for PeopleAsia’s “People of the Year” awardees for 2024 in her official residence in Makati, with members of the diplomatic corps and top businessmen in attendance. Present were British Ambassador Laure Beaufils and Italian Ambassador Marco Clemente.
By JOANNE RAE RAMIREZ
Among the “People of the Year” awardees present were Lifetime Achievement awardee Alice G. Eduardo, president/CEO of Sta. Elena Construction and Development Corp.; automotive executive, lawyer Albert Arcilla; Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. president/CEO Eugene Acevedo; Monaco Consul General and humanitarian Fortune Ledesma; Shell Pilipinas Corp. president/CEO Lorelie Osial; fashion designer Puey Quiñones; and Grab Philippines country head Grace Vera Cruz. Also at the reception was Singapore Airlines general manager Tai Liwei, as the airline was chosen “Airline of the Year” for the second year in a row.
Representing PeopleAsia were managing editor Jose Paolo dela Cruz, sales and marketing manager Jannette Velasco, features editor Alex Vergara, art director Dexter Francis de Vera, executive assistant Corrine Nabata and yours truly
In her extemporaneous remarks, Ambassador Fontanel, who is marking her fifth month in Manila, said, “As I was reading PeopleAsia and I saw all your faces, I said, these are the ‘People of the Year 2024’, and I was like, wow, this is great! But then I started to see faces that I hadn’t had the chance to meet yet. I knew some of your names, of course, and told myself ‘I have to know these people, these are the ‘People of the Year 2024.’ These are very important people.”
Former adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron, diplomat, wife, mother of three and ballet and modern dancer, Ambassador Fontanel believes being in the Philippines this moment is a crucial move for France and for her.
When asked to resume her career overseas after 20 years in France, she chose the Philippines.
“The Philippines was on the top of my list, I have to say, because this is the moment,” she once told me.
During the reception, the French diplomat said 2024 is a milestone year for France. “My president, President Macron said in his speech for the New Year that it will be a year millésime, which is the name that we use for good wine, which would be Grand Cru. It would be a 2024 Grand Cru because of the Paris Olympic Games, because of the Summit of the Francophonie in France, because of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day in Normandy. And maybe at the end of the year, Notre Dame will probably reopen.”
D-Day is marked on June 6 and it will be the 80th anniversary of the day the Allied forces launched a combined naval, air and land assault on Nazi-occupied France. It was the largest seaborne invasion in history and the operation began the liberation of France and the rest of Western Europe.
The next month, from July 26, 2024, Paris will be hosting the world’s biggest sporting event: the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Having previously hosted in 1900 and 1924, Paris will become the second city, after London (which hosted in 1908, 1948 and 2012), to host the Summer Olympics three times. Paris 2024 will mark the centenary of Paris 1924.
The Francophonie summit will open on Oct. 4, 2024 at the Cité Internationale de la Langue Française, in Villers-Cotterêts, a place entirely dedicated to the French language and French-speaking cultures, inaugurated last October by President Macron.
And to close the year, the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It can be recalled that the Notre Dame was razed by a fire, but not to the ground, in 2019. In nothing short of a miracle and hard work, the world-famous cathedral is expected to welcome the faithful anew in December 2024.
On behalf of PeopleAsia, I thanked Ambassador Fontanel for honoring the “People of the Year” awardees, bringing honor as well to the magazine, which just received another Quill Award of Excellence from the International Association of Business Communicators.
Vive le France! Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!
