Lastly, of course, I wanted to highlight our economic ties, given that bilateral trade is growing for businesses in every field, ranging from the arts to the economy. Of course, I wanted to talk about our gastronomy, our savoir-faire. I’m giving this speech at a very important time: the French baguette has just been granted Intangible Cultural Heritage status by UNESCO. Chef, come here! “World bread heroes.” Our chef, our baker, tells me that the flour is Label Rouge flour.

What I want to say tonight is that we’ve been fighting for this for years, at every galette ceremony at the Élysée, with our bakers, our pastry chefs, our artisan bakers, we’ve been fighting, saying, “We want this to be recognized by UNESCO.” We finally succeeded! It just so happens that the president of the National Federation of French Bakeries and Patisseries, Dominique Anract, is in New York with several of your colleagues as we speak, I believe. But what I want to say here is that these few centimeters of savoir-faire handed down from one person to the next perfectly capture the spirit of French savoir-faire. That’s to say, it’s inimitable. It seems like it’s just something material, but no. That is what the baguette represents. There’s our wine – Mr. Colombo is here too – he has done a fantastic job with our Côte Rôtie and he has paid tribute to the history and friendship shared by our countries. Our gastronomy and our chefs are beloved. Our spirits, which several of you have worked on, our restaurants – their value is priceless because behind the scenes, they represent jobs in our country. These are dreams that we share with our children by showing them that even if you start at the very bottom of the ladder, if you spend day and night learning this savoir-faire, which is handed down from one person to the next and that is many, many centuries old – because you never count the days and nights you spend – you end up with an inimitable product.

Many people have made attempts: they’ve produced something industrial with no flavor. What gives it its flavor? It’s because no one has shared the patent. Because it’s handed down from one person to the next. Because it’s inimitable, the French baguette. Well, that’s exactly what I want us to do in every field and that’s exactly what you are working on. It’s the same thing that we know how to do when it comes to intelligence, space instruments, nuclear technology, it’s the same thing that we know how to do when it comes to French tech. There’s this French touch, as we like to say in proper French. And this French touch that we’ve brought to the baguette, we’ve brought it to other fields. There’s almost a little extra savoir-faire and a little extra soul to it. So, today I’d like to congratulate the French baguette.