Good news for French-speaking sport: Canadian Michaëlle Jean, 57, was appointed on Sunday November 30 in Dakar Secretary General of the Francophonie, a position she will occupy from January 1, 2015. She replaces the Senegalese Abdou Diouf, who will have led the OIF for 12 years. “We are not replacing Abdou Diouf, we are succeeding him,” Michaëlle Jean insisted shortly after the vote, where the representatives of French-speaking countries preferred her to the four other candidates, Jean-Claude de l'Estrac (Mauritius) , Pierre Buyoya (Burundi), Henri Lopes (Congo) and Agustin Nze Nfumu (Equatorial Guinea).
Michaëlle Jean's victory looks like a revolution in the French-speaking world. The Canadian of Haitian origin becomes the first woman to sit at the head of the International Organization of the Francophonie. She is also the first Secretary General not to come from an African country, a break with the unwritten rule according to which the post must go to a representative of Africa.
Michaëlle Jean (center) with Nawal el Moutawakel, Christophe De Kepper and Carlos Nuzman at the 2012 London Olympics
Sport, in all this? Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada between 2005 and 2010, Michaëlle Jean was certainly, among the five candidates, the closest to the sports movement. In Vancouver in 2010, she gave the opening speech of the Winter Games. Above all, the Canadian was appointed by Abdou Diouf to be the Great Witness of the Francophonie at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London in 2012.
In Dakar, where the Francophonie Summit was held over the last two days, Olympism held a stronger place than ever. On the eve of the designation of Michaëlle Jean, Abdou Diouf very officially received the Golden Olympic Order (top photo) from the hands of Thomas Bach, the President of the IOC, who arrived Friday evening in the Senegalese capital. A ceremony during which the German leader and his IOC colleague, Prince Albert of Monaco, insisted on the role played by Abdou Diouf for the development of sport in the French-speaking world and the place of French in the Games.
A sportsman leaves, a sportswoman arrives. Michaëlle Jean will take up her duties at the OIF at the beginning of January 2015. One of her first decisions should be to choose a Great Witness of the Francophonie for the Rio Games in 2016.
Michaëlle Jean with Marcel Aubut, president of the Canadian Olympic Committee
