The Alliance Française of the Lake Champlain Region (AFLCR) is pleased to announce that Linda Pervier has been decorated by the French Ministry of Education with les Palmes académiques – a prestigious award created by Napoléon for devotion and accomplishment in teaching French, extended internationally in modern times to include achievement in promoting the French language.
Shelburne Museum, where Ms. Pervier is a Development Officer, hosted the September 29 event, which began with a tour of French Impressionist art at the Electra Havemeyer Webb Memorial building, followed by the AFLCR's Annual Meeting of Members in the Pleissner Gallery. Ernie Pomerleau, Vermont's Honorary Consul to France, said of Ms. Pervier, "Her advocacy and promotion of French culture and language in our region spans many years and is extraordinary." President of the AFLCR since 2008, Linda Pervier has supported the initiatives by the downtown Burlington business community and the regional Chamber of Commerce to create a welcoming French-speaking presence for the numerous francophone visitors to this Vermont community, most notably by providing Hospitality French language instruction to retail and service workers in the tourism sector and to local businesses.
Before bestowing the decoration of the Ordre des Palmes académiques on behalf of the French government, Christophe Guilhou, Consul General of France at Boston, traced the history of the Palmes award and Ms. Pervier’s 18 years in promoting and celebrating French language and culture. In accepting this recognition Ms. Pervier, a second-generation Franco-american from Maine, cited the work of inspirational past leaders, as well as that of myriad current devoted and tireless volunteers for the AFLCR in making her own efforts meaningful.
Recently, Burlington made coast-to-coast headlines across bilingual Canada when on August 8 it unanimously adopted several Resolutions encouraging a more tangible French language-friendly atmosphere in the city. The city is gaining notoriety in Canada and franco-influenced pockets of the US as a distinctly French language-friendly destination, with an increasingly bilingual ambiance and renewed recognition of the region's 400-year French heritage.
Based in Burlington Vermont, where a French presence dates back 400 years, the Alliance Française of the Lake Champlain Region, a nonprofit organization, is dedicated to promoting French language, culture and histories, while encouraging friendship and mutual understanding among all francophone peoples and citizens of Vermont.