François chaired in September ntreal the 10th congress of the Association of the csotcina.comedists of French language . Whereas he was surgeon pediatrist in Grenoble, François launched out in a teaching hospital career to Quebec. He recalls us his professional path which led it to its current location of surgeon chief of the hospital of of Montreal and gives us news of the surgical situation in Belle Province.

. : Is Mr , which your course?

. : And well, it is a double course, European and North American since I began my studies of medicine in Lyon in France, I made my boarding school in Grenoble and a six-month period of exchange in Paris at Mr. and Mr. . When I was at Mr. , he told me: “Francois, he is necessary that you will see Dr. in Montreal”. I thus came to spend one year to Montreal in 1984 87 and at the end of nths, whereas people of co. Justine sought a recruit, one rained oneself mutually and a place was proposed to me. I am turned over to make my year of senior registrar so as to have my diploma for the occupation of French surgeon into 81-82 then into 82, I returned to Canada to pass all equivalences of diploma and became Canadian at the same time csotcina.comedist and citizen.

. : You found that there was not enough #FFFFFF in Grenoble and that the winters were not long enough?

. : There were two reasons with my choice. Firstly, to protect my family. In Grenoble, I was the only csotcina.comedist pediatrist and one finished by me calling in all the cases which I would be of guard or not. I am not certain that my family would have followed if I had remained in Grenoble. One can discuss it very a long time, but it was a fear.

The 2nd reason of my choice is that I was always a player of team. In particular I played during years and I continued in Montreal. One trained a team and for me a team it is more than two people as opposed to what one often notes in the services in France. I had the love at first sight when I saw how one worked in Montreal. When the team of co. Justine, i.e. the French-speaking pediatric hospital of Montreal, formed at the time of 5 people proposed to me to join it, it was really there that it was necessary that I would be. On the one hand, I was going to make only pediatric csotcina.comaedics while in Grenoble, I were obliged in guard to make of the adult, on the other hand, I had a group which supported me on the academic level. I had a career to which I could not even dream at the beginning since after 11 years spent with co. Justine, it is the university of which came to seek me to become chief of the hospital of Montreal for children of which I occupy myself since 1993 and in 2001 I became surgeon chief of the hospital, Canada. The department of pediatric csotcina.comaedics of , for which I am responsible is only one unity with two hospitals: the hospital of Montreal for children and the hospital where I spend most clearly my time since 2000.

. : How would you define for us French ?

. : are a philanthropic organization at the beginning and their system of hospital is a completely private system. are close to the freemasons but with the difference of Europe, the freemasons of North America show themselves. One is noble to be freemason, one makes public demonstrations etc… It is not as certain European freemasonries where it is a little more “underground”. In the beginning, freemasons met in New York at the end of , they told themselves that was well to be in a network of freemasons, but that they missed a philanthropic aim and they created to deal with handicapped children of the musculo-skeletal system, primarily at the time the children reached of polio and tuberculosis. Gradually these diseases there then were replaced by malformations, by traumatology, and continued to fulfill their role by supporting children reached in their musculo-skeletal integrity. have 22 hospital in North America, 20 in the United States, 1 in Mexico City and 1 with Canada and we have the chance that it is in Montreal. In Quebec, the health system is public thus the statute of the hospital is an intermediate statute. It is an officially agreed hospital and to give you an idea in the way in which it is officially agreed, its budget comes for 1/4 from the government and 3/4 from . We thus have a liberty of action which I do not have at the hospital of Montreal for the Children where the budget is purely governmental and the restricted appropriations, while the level of the “budgetary” allows, amongst other things a quality of greeting which is very different.

. : Can one compare this system with some of our private hospitals which have a Convention with a university or a medical faculty?

. : Completely and whereas our hospital is affiliated in a historical way with the university of , given that the colleagues of co. Justine come also on our premises, we are negotiating an affiliation with the university of Montreal. Our hospital thus will be doubly affiliated to the 2 large universities .

. : Who perhaps neat in a hospital of ?

. : In Quebec, all children since it is a public hospital in its species. Maintaining as it has a private party, I can look after there people who come from abroad. There is a system of acceptance with analysis of file. One cannot accept no matter whom any time, but once people passed through this system of acceptance and looked after in , they do not pay anything. They are arranged to travel but once they re-enter in the hospital, the costs of care are dealt with by , it is that the beauty of the gesture of . It is certain that in the United States it is more important still, since there are nevertheless in the United States much people who do not have an insurance and who use because they cannot pay. Know you and I there have been just made confirm the figures that it is between 40 and illion people who do not have an health insurance in the United States, i.e. more than all the population of Canada which does not have access to the care, and which must spend. Let us take a practical example: a young couple, has a child reached of spina bifida: If they do not have an insurance and that there is not a hospital in the neighborhoods and well for these people there, it is the assured ruin to make look after their child.

. : You want to say that in the United States, the customers of the hospitals of are customers much more underprivileged than that which you have here in Montreal where it superimposes yourselves on that of all the other Canadian hospitals?

. : On our premises, the customers are completely superposable, with that of the other Canadian hospitals, but in the United States there is this skew of recruitment due to the fact that do not make pay for the care and indeed all people “collect” who are in the need. I must say that on this side, it is absolutely fantastic what they are able to make.

. : Did you definitively gain the battle against the risk of delocalization of the hospital of of Montreal?

. : Then it is very a good question since that was prone of controversy at least these 3 last years. To summarize the history, wanted to rebuild another hospital in Montreal and when this discussion arrived, the problem of the localization arose. People said that being anglophone, one would have can be to move the hospital in an anglophone medium, like Ontario. That gave place to a battle which can be summarized with only one vote: to move the hospital and to close that of Montreal, one needed the 2/3 of the voting rights for closing. It is the reverse which occurred and the 2/3 voted to remain in Montreal, that of which we were very proud. Maintaining the hospital is not yet in rebuilding but we have plans which were deposited in the organization of and we await their decision. To say that all is finished, not, surely not, as long as one did not start to shovel and make the construction of the new hospital all can occur, but…

. : Is its localization ensured Montreal?

. : The hospital of Montreal will not close. It is assured. Now one will have a new hospital, when and where, I cannot still answer these questions.

. : You spoke about anglophonia, the hospital of of Montreal is an anglophone hospital?

. : Not, it is an entirely bilingual hospital, like the majority of the institutions in Quebec. One looks after people in their language. The anglophone patients are neat in English and the French-speaking patients in French. That does not pose a problem.

. : The Conventions which you do have with the anglophone university , are not an obstruction with the francophonie?

. : Not, it is certain that all that relates to the administration and the teaching of the residents makes in English, but on the level of the care of the patients it is really very bilingual.

. : Are there much children in Quebec?

. : I believe that we are unfortunately as in many Western countries in crisis of birthrate; what is a little specific in Quebec, is that if there were not immigration, one would be in decrease of population, one thus makes so that this immigration is French-speaking and there are laws which the successive governments tried to propose so that French is protected, in particular the law 101 which is not always well understood or is not accepted. In addition, yesterday evening with the opening ceremony of the , I was able to show by statistics which French was not in decrease in Canada but in light growth, and it is rather a good news. Canadian is proud of their difference compared to the United States.

. : How are the surgeons remunerated by Canada, all at least in Quebec?

. : By Quebec, the surgeons are remunerated various ways, he does not have only one system there. Let us say immediately that the deprived system as there exists in France, does not exist yet. I tell “not yet” because it is in gestation. Three of our colleagues csotcina.comedists were withdrawn from the governmental system and currently practice in a completely private medium. But they cannot keep hospitalized patients the night, therefore they make only surgeries “in the event of one day” except that it is a foot in the gate. There is a beginning, there are pioneers in all the fields and these 3 colleagues are pioneers to develop the deprived system in Quebec but which is far from being flourishing as it can the being in France.

. : They are 3 on a payroll of how much?

. : 240 csotcina.comedists about in the province of Quebec. Maintaining the system most general of remunerations is that people are paid with the act. In other words, if you do not work, you do not touch anything. If you operate much, you are paid more. This system which goes very well on the level of adult csotcina.comedy, had a major drawback for the csotcina.comedists pediatrists. Because a pediatrist spends more time with each one of his patients. It is necessary to deal with the family, the parents are there, then inertia is a little bit heavier. The pediatric patients are often multidisciplinary patients. For example, the spina bifida, that take an urologist, that takes a neurosurgeon pediatrist, an csotcina.comedist, therefore it is heavier like case to discuss and a multidisciplinary private clinic in which one does not see that some patients in 2-3 hours is less compatible with a payment with the act. We were able to negotiate there is a few years a remuneration known as “mixed”. I.e. now, all the csotcina.comedists pediatrists, are paid with a “” i.e. a certain amount per day over which a percentage of your activities is grafted.

. : In are such a system, how developed the activities which do not bring back acts, I think of the activities of teaching, search, managing staff, responsibility for service?

. : Then… the health system provides for that in a way very very strict. Only the care with the patients is considered. All that is teaching concerns the minister of education and the universities. Then me which am instructor with , I receive wages of the university as an instructor, which enables me to protect part of my time to make teaching. My colleague and associated which is the scientific director of the for the program of this year are stock exchange researcher, i.e. it makes 50% of his time in private clinic for which he is remunerated by the analog and digital system ( and act) and 50% seeks some for which he must develop requests for search, requests for funds and thus 50% of its wages come from requests for funds.

It is very demanding as system because it is a system which remunerates you compared to what you really made. One is far from a wage-earning where at the end of the month, “you worked ace, you ace not worked, you keys similar”. There are doctors paid in Quebec, they are really very few and in general they do not discuss patients and are rather administrators.

. : Are the anesthetists also paid with the act?

. : Absolutely! But, one lived a shortage of anesthetists like a little bit everywhere, and I think that one can reasonably blame the governments which knew very well that if they increased the number of anesthetists, it would have more surgery. and as it is the government which pay them, it was an indirect manner…

. : … To limit the health expenditure?

. : Exactly. Maintaining the anesthetists whom we have, work readily. There is no problem to make work an anesthetist, one rather has difficulties of having an anesthetist certain days. For example, it is to sometimes happen me to close the , because there was nobody to replace a sick anesthetist.

. : Which is the standard day of an csotcina.comedic surgeon in Quebec?

. : In general one starts very early, and I will say that 7:30 it is already “fatty the ”. One makes the lesson with 7:15 and the operational day starts with 7:45. To 7:45, the patient returns in the room in theory and the operational days finish with 15:30 . I.e. if there is no academic or administrative activity with the waning of the operational day, people can be theoretically on their premises towards 17:00. You imagine that it is not very often the case. However one turns over on our premises much earlier than when I lived in France. Me which makes days of approximately 11 hours the every day, I can be with 18:00 at the house but not with 21:00.

. : Summers you confronted with many claiming or litigious patients?

. : My answer is yes. The Canadian law protects the consumer enormously, that he is consumer of care or a purchaser of car or goods personal. Thus I will say that one does not think of it permanently but it is a . It is also a stimulus to give best ourselves. One cannot allow oneself, because one is not good mood, to send to trott a family which expects a professional attitude on behalf of the doctor. I do not speak about operational complications which arrive at everyone and my faith if insurances are paid it is also for that, but the claiming patient will be more claiming on the quality of the medical act, expecting that the doctor makes all the possible efforts, knowing that complications can occur because no surgery is free from complication.

. : And you do not have the impression of a harassing on behalf of avocados as certain fellow-members of the United States can feel it?

. : Not! At all, at all! One is on our guards but not to this point there and I would say that when I want to operate that does not decentralize me.

. : Do you live a shortage of nurses?

. : Yes! We live a shortage of nurses in Quebec and the good news is that there is much in training in this moment and there is also a recruitment which was made in Europe, (of course in the French-speaking countries because it is a little easier), but definitively, there is a shortage of nurses. With what is it due? I will probably not have all the elements to be able to explain it to you. There are of them some which are obvious, like the degradation of the profession seen of outside. The nurse was “with the small care” for the patients. Taking into account the budgetary cuts that there was in the health system in the former years, the nurse became often a manager of care. She must make much administration, therefore she spends less time with the patients and the side human contact was lost a little. I think that the nurses are rectifying the boat because the boat went nowhere. The trade of nurse will be never again as before and there are the other forms of nurses who arrive. To give you an example, as there is less of doctors also, there is a delegation of a certain number of acts which are granted to the nurses. Thus nurses who are able to make a postoperative follow-up, which is able to make tracking of certain csotcina.comedic diseases, able to integrate a research project and to examine patients with a good formation.

. : And does the legislation follow all that real-time?

. : Absolutely!

. : … Is it an update of tasks progressive and allowed?

. : That is done with the legislation at the same time. Even thing as an operating-room since there will be nurses who will be authorized with being a first operational assistant. I.e. the day when one does not have a resident as an operating-room, the surgery can be done because there will be nurses especially trained for that. Thus it is a good news, because that raises of a notch the level of responsibility for the nurses, who will feel more implied surely much in the health system.

. : And how do you make to be gravitational with respect to the French-speaking or European nurses of which we miss already?

. : I did not can answer this question because I do not take part in this countryside. Probably quality of life, and the difference because Quebec is neither better nor worse than France, it is just different.  It is necessary to accept the differences and one can be very happy.

. : Do you have recourse to the interim in this moment?

. : Yes but in a specific way.

. : How be you been able to interest you in imperfect osteogenesis?

. : I reflect because that always was in me. I always liked the rare diseases. Since my boarding school, all that was rare interested me and thus when I started with co. Justine, fatally my colleagues which them preferred to see more luxation of the hip, clubfeet referred their rare diseases to me. Thus I quickly found myself to occupy me of all the skeletal dysplasias and the metabolic diseases. To tell to you truth, my current practice rests primarily on the metabolic diseases, malformations of SEMI for the skeletal lengthenings and all dysplasias. I launched with co. Justine since my beginnings and since to the hospital of Montreal for children of the multidisciplinary private clinics of youthful arthritis. I deal thus with all the forms of youthful arthritis which they are psoriatic, idiopathic or and that still it is because I like “to play” equips some, I like to work with my colleagues rheumatologists, I like to work with my colleagues , etc… Donc I do not know to when that goes back but it is a primary interest for all that is rare probably. I am a collector, I like the rare things.

. : Then precisely, you the rare things, Quebec is not very populated, until where do you drain like all these patients?

. : With regard to imperfect osteogenesis, I must say that one has a single situation, because this kind of economic situation, that arrives only once in a life. Francis Glorieux which is the Director of the genetics at the hospital and me we let us be found with same passion for imperfect osteogenesis and we were able to develop together a model of care, - which is probably specific and not “transportable”. Then it goes well on our premises with our medium. People who come to visit us because they are numerous, can reproduce with specificities clean in their medium something of about similar or different. All has starts in 1992 when Dr. Glorieux had the idea to discuss the children reached of imperfect osteogenesis with and me I was confronted with a great number of children whom I operated but my complication rate with the nail of and left me very thoughtful. I am told that as I were probably that which in North America operated more these small children there, if I waited until somebody finds a solution for me, I were likely to wait a long time. Then I developed “famous” the nail Fassier-Duval which is right an amendment of the telescopic nail already invented by and in 1963 but which had never been given to the day order. The medical care and the surgical treatment are at such point developed on our premises which one became a species of model. Then indeed we drain patients of a little everywhere in the world. I at the head do not have the number of countries from which the children come to be made look after on our premises but it is important. For example, we have beautiful being in Canada, we look after patients of the United States, which comes from California, of St Louis in Missouri, to Florida to be made look after in Montreal whereas they have access to other kinds of care.

We have many patients who also come from South America, of Ecuador, of Peru, of Mexico, I do not know how much one has children of Mexico who come regularly. We have some who come even from France. I operated some of Sweden, of Slovenia, of Croatia, of Spain, of , more recently of Germany, and much of other places still.

. : You have a true synergy between the clinical research, the fundamental research, the therapeutic one?

. : Completely. And it is what made some, I think, a model quite simply in imperfect osteogenesis. What is extraordinary they is that the families push us, the families speak itself. Thus I was invited to discuss patients with Ljubljana as Slovenia because the family of a child had spoken with the family about Stockholm which had come to be made look after on our premises and which people succeeded in convincing their doctor to make me come. And that it is the word of mount family! It is fantastic what the parents find of energy to make discuss their children when they think that it is what is best for them.

. : Was a true revolution for the processing of this disease…?

. : Completely. It is meant that is not a cure of the disease. If you have difficulties in read, that you are short-sighted, a good pair of glasses will enable you to read. You improve your quality of life. prevents the bone from breaking but it has other negotiable instruments. changed the quality of life of the patients and I do not think that one can turn over behind because these patients there do not have more pains as they had front, with an annual rate of fractures which is very in lower part of the normal, finally to the lower part of the normal for an imperfect osteogenesis. On the other hand, and that Dr. Glorieux often says it, which there is like difference between a medicine and a poison: it is the amount. If you give too much that becomes a poison. There is an item which was published in the New England Journal off and which should unfortunately never have been accepted for publication. The child which one describes the iatrogenic would not have never to receive firstly, that was not a good indication and secondly it received an amount 7 times the amount recommended. Thus one cannot show . This overdose actually induced this .

. : Is the nail Fassier-Duval, which its main advantage?

. : It there with the theory and the practice. In theory there were two aims to make an amendment of the nail. Firstly, not to more make of the knee for the of femur, because for the other nail it was necessary to re-enter the distal part in the knee. Secondly, one of the main complications which one had, was the migration nail in the buttock. It went up regularly.

We thus made an amendment of the nail which enabled us to insert it like any femoral nail in an anterograde way by the great trochanter, with a fixing screwed in the pineal gland, therefore avoiding having to open the knee. Concerning fixing , after having spoken much with engineers, one chose a fixing with a screw in the great trochanter, by thinking that the screw could not go up in the buttock. That it was the theory. In practice, indeed, one does not open any more the knee, but there are still some complications because if the nail is not well screwed in the great trochanter with the vibrations due to the functioning or the muscular contractions, etc, a certain number of nails are unscrewed. It is the side a little frustrating of this technique there, however as I always said when the nail left, it is not “ technical”, but it is a progress.  Other amendments will be necessary because one fixes oneself in cartilage, it is not very solid, that evolves/moves, that grows. It is not as a nail which one will put in a bone of adult for which one knows only if a good screw is put, that will not move. There, is needed that one finds an attachment unit in a medium much more evolutionary over the years and it is, I think, the next challenge of amendment of the nail: it will be necessary to find a fixing more stable and more reliable.

. : You also evolved to the with closed chamber. What becomes the kabobs in all that?

. : The kabobs remains the principle even of the surgery, i.e. to align a bone which is curved on a right stem, but instead of making as in the technique described in 1959, i.e. to leave the bone and to put it on the table and to cut it of small pieces to align it, one is able maintaining with our techniques, to do it without opening. When I make an osteotomy, my incision has about 2-m, I use a very small osteotome or a fuse to weaken the bone and I make a on a weakened bone, exactly at the place where I want that it breaks; but the nail is in the bone and as soon as the is made, I advance the nail. Then the number of cicatrices fell considerably just as the blood losses and than the postoperative pains. Thus on this side, the surgery which one calls minicomputer invasive, returns of immense services. But it is necessary to learn how to do it. I think that it is not always obvious at the beginning but once one is accustomed, one does not want to make another thing more because the patients are well.

. : To change subject completely, you spoke about sport presently. From France, one imagines readily a Québécois surgeon with rackets with the feet continuing a moose around a lake.

. : The racket it is true!. One with the chance to have seasons here. There are countries which do not have this chance to have seasons. I adore to make ski and racket. I do not make a shoe because I was not high with shoes with the feet and then it is more difficult to learn when one is returned at a certain age and that one does not want to break, because it is hard the ice. On the other hand, the summer I ride and bike. Nature is very generous in Quebec. One adapts and one changes activity according to the seasons. In this moment, one arrives in the season of the beautiful colors, one will walk in wood and as soon as there is a little bit of snow, one will take the rackets and I will not continue a moose because it will not await me but one will look at the birds, nature. It is very regenerating to pass an end of the week in nature, therefore one tries to do it as often as possible. For example, we have a country cottage for my family which is to n of Montreal. To n of Montreal, I am at the edge of a lake in the middle of the forest! I imagine Parisian who downtown area of Paris would like to have a country cottage at the edge of a lake with n. There is surely, in great private fields, but it is not given to everyone, I imagine.

. : And hockey, do you have a fetish team?

. : Sure, Canadians of Montreal. The Canadians who have a “H besides” on their shirt. I will tell you why. French-speaking Canadian, formerly was called “the inhabitant”. Therefore, “C” has a “H” inside which wants to say “inhabitant”, “, ! ” Yes I like much to look at hockey. I am not bitten in the sense that I will not see all the parties because there is much in a season but I readily like to go to see part of hockey. It is a sport, which I find, is a tremendous speed. Unfortunately it is a sport which can become violent, I have the impression, even if I did not live at the time of the Romans, that made a little bit…

. : Fights gladiators?

. : Gladiators yes! You have two hockey players who start with on their shoes, and it crowd is in is delirious. That disturbs me some share, because if these people there did that in the street, they would be stopped, but there it is the spectacle and that grains me much, this species of passion for violence on the ice. It is certain that if one likes to see violence on the ice, that will not disturb to see violence outside the ice.

. : Isn't this very North-American all that? When one looks at American football compared to the football which one knows in Europe, i.e. with the , violence is much more present there?

. : I will not be completely of agreement. American football is a sport of contact. There are enormously contacts, but it is not a violent sport. I do not remember in 20 years to have seen football players American fighting. The arbitration is extremely strict and these people there are equipped in such a way that practically they cannot fight. I do not tell you that they are not made blows by in lower part but one does not see people fighting with football as one sees with hockey. With the , since football is called the in North America, the vicious blows do not miss and I was a player of you know. Not, American football is a sport of contact and contacts violent one but I will not regard it as a sport violate or aggressiveness will try to wound.

. : You organized with the association of csotcina.comedy of Quebec of the meetings of wine tasting. Do the Inhabitants of Quebec appreciate the wine and the good expensive one in general?

. : Yes, yes. It is necessary nevertheless to explain in which context this is done. This was done at the instigation of one our colleagues, Doctor , large wine amateur, large collector of wine which wanted to make a lifting of funds for the association of csotcina.comedy of Quebec which deals with helping the countries in the process of development. We have a sub-group which is called Overseas “csotcina.comedy” thus when myself or a colleague for Haiti to help our colleagues we leave are subsidized by the association of csotcina.comedy of Quebec and that takes money for that. The aim of this wine tasting was of raising funds for “csotcina.comedy Overseas”.

This colleague gave not only bottles of Grand Prix for the drawing lots, but each one paid its inscription to come to taste wines and he explained us a little bit the quality or specificities of each wine which he had chosen itself.

. : What virus ?

. : then virus - I see that you are quite well informed I was actually reached by virus “csotcina.comedy Overseas” very many years ago. … My first experiment, it was in 1986. At this time there I was with co. Justine and I wanted to really go to work and, to make my share for a certain number of colleagues who are less lucky than us. I left with “ S Inc” which is an American organism, based to Washington. I left to spend 3 weeks to Ethiopia and that was a revelation. At this time there, there was still the war in and I made adult csotcina.comedy and child because at this time there it was out of the question to be very specific in pediatry. Gradually I specialized more, since my competences as an adult csotcina.comedist nevertheless are very limited, and I make from now on only pediatric csotcina.comedics when I can and my last experiment goes back to simply a few months since I was in Ecuador in the month of February 2006, to look after children reached of imperfect osteogenesis during one week. We left in team to look after them on the metabolic, medical and even occupational level, since one had taken along with us, a and a physiotherapeutist.

I continue to work accordingly because my retreat approaches quietly, therefore I will have another life afterwards. I go certainly, as long as I will be able to continue to operate, render service there to these populations and in the program of the , I do not know if you saw, Saturday morning, there is a guest of the chairman whom I called “wandering Canadian”. It is one of my colleagues and old resident who is called Richard who will give us his experiment him which is a professional of csotcina.comedy Overseas.

. : You are not cured a virus ?

. : Not! I do not think that one cures some, it is a little like paludism. I gave a conference on the subject a few years ago and I compared indeed virus with paludism. That comes by crisis, but when that takes to you, it is necessary to go there.

. : Which is your opinion informed on the quality of the North-American wines and particularly of the Québécois wines?

. : My opinion completely changed. When I arrived here, there is more than 25 years, I remember that one had announced the inspection of a friend to us who came on the side of Savigny-the-Beaune. What was one going to make him drink, him which was accustomed to drink high-class wines? I had bought a wine of Ontario but I had provided for a French wine if. The Ontarian wine passed directly in the sink. One could not even use it for the kitchen.

Now, I can tell you a thing: there are wines of Ontario, of the Niagara one which are excellent, the wine of ice, of course, which is very specific, but also wines of the valley of in British Columbia. I do not tell you that they are compared with of but in fact very good wines are especially at a very accessible price. It is the problem which one has when one leaves France to buy French wines. They are too expensive abroad and here, in Quebec, even if there is a monopoly on the sale of alcohol, by the Society of the Alcohol of Quebec, the , my choice is larger now than I left France. I discovered the Italian wines, the Spanish wines, the Chilean wines, the Argentinian wines and then of course the wines of California. They are more accessible, one finds a little bit of all including the excellent ones. Compared to 25 years ago, there was absolutely fantastic progress.

. : Thus is the superiority complex of the French as for their vineyard less and less justified?

. : It is necessary that the French are wary because indeed people learned. You know that concerning the Californian high-class wines, most of the Californian vineyard is planted with type of vines which came from the of Bordeaux one. They are people who have a scientific approach and who are able to produce very very high-class wines. The French wine remains excellent, he does not have no doubt there on top, but it has competitors more and more.

. : To finish, that would you say as a chairman of the congress of the to our French-speaking colleagues so that they come in mass in to the next congress from the in 2008?

. : In what relates to me, the , it is a little the francophonie such as it was defined by , former chief executive of Senegal and 1st guest of the in 1986: it is a question of attitude. We have a crop, this crop is French-speaking, we share this crop with a great number of countries since more than 35 countries are represented in Montreal. It is a unique opportunity to share our knowledge, our experiments in French and it is especially a unique opportunity of meetings with people who live in another medium. I have friends absolutely everywhere throughout the world thanks to the francophonie and even if the remainder of the year I make my English teaching at the university, I will not give up French because it is in my crop.

Then is a splendid city and it is necessary to visit Morocco, it is an absolutely sumptuous country. I am sure that Pr well will organize that and I will be in Morocco in 2008 if health allows it to me.