so, the occasion has now come and we are looking forward to the mayor looking around san francisco and seeing the changes that have been made. i don't know whether -- is willie brown here? he was the one who started this some 16 years ago, i think he would have turned in this beret in order to change jobs with the mayor of paris, having gone there so many times, we also have with us tom horn who is our chairman of our sister city committee which has many exchanges which we're going hear about more of them today, mayor lee, you have been mayor for almost two years, and as you know, the mayor of paris has been mayor for 11 years, and look how young he is, so there's hope for you. we have just had a meeting

inside and the mate -- mayor has made a promise which tom and i and matthew, we're going to make sure he keeps that promise and he says, next year, we're going to paris, so tom horn and i are going to be the advanced team, we're leaving with the mayor on a sunday when he goes back. so, may i introduce our mayor, a newer mayor than the mayor of paris but one we are proud of and we will be hoping that he is planning the trip very soon, so may i present mayor lee. [applause]. >> thank you, charlotte. >> well, thank you, everybody, for coming here today. as you can see, there was excitement in the air when the mayor of paris comes to san francisco and i want to welcome him, i want to welcome the

council general office as well, this is an exciting moment for me, waiting 6 years since his last visit is too long, not to renew a friendship to this city which has been historic friendship and one of the most dynamic sister city relationships that we have, i noticed in our room we have other numbers of our other sister cities, manila and gosh, there's so many, cork, and other regions that also -- and our other council generals that are here today, thank you so much for coming and frn council blats for enjoying this moment, there is a lot to be gained by our sister city and especially with paris, i was informing the mayor of my first trip to paris, it's been my only trip which is why i have to go officially, but that was 1969

was my very first trip to pear ris as a high school student, as a high school choir of high school in seattle, we raised money all yearlong for us to go, i got to visit the jazz club along the river and then i got to hear for the very first time stevie wonder saying my shari amor in paris, look it up, that's why of course mayor dell way has invited me to be making my first official visit some time next year and certainly charlotte and tom and others have jumped on the occasion, matt and everybody else, but it is one of those relationships that i have understood as being one of the most porn -- important in the

city, one is an international status, one we hold dearly because there's a lot to learn, each of our cities as great as they are become greater as our goals of becoming environmentally responsible, creating our opportunity for our economies to fwroe and our dialog in our country is the urban cities that have to create the new jobs for the new economy. i know paris must do so as well, and if we work tokt, we can create those and instigate and innovate our new ideas for the new economy and our mutual obligations on the environment, and then there is something that paris and san francisco hold very dearly and that's an ongoing conversation about our human rights as world leaders, so it's human rights, it's the environment, it's the economy and these are the reasons why we hold our relationship with

paris and with all the other great cities of the world in a sister city relationship so dearly, we learn from each other, we send delegations to each other, we welcome each other to the city but in each and every instance, we are always thinking about ideas about how we can help each other and help regions improve, so i am excited to have met with the mayor just a few minutes ago to reaffirm our relationship and we'll sign that in a few moments to document that and to promise each other that we will continue this very great relationship and we could not have done it without the involvement of our private citizens, tom horn has led a fantastic group of volunteers on our sister city committee for paris and san francisco,

and he's doing a marvelous job and this again reflects how our citizenry helps our city become a better city with these sister city relationships and again i want to thank you and the audience too who are volunteers in our -- i really, really thank you from the bottom of my heart for creating such a great part of our soul of our cities, and giving us the reasons why we can be an international city, so with that, welcome, mayor, and i look forward to not only signing the semlu, and our visits of our various government officials as well as private citizens to continue instigating wonderful ideas and implementing ideas, and with that, i would like to present to you on behalf of our city and to the mayor -- >> as everybody knows, we did

have our 77th anniversary of the golden gate bridge, not quite as old as some of the things in paris, and so this is a set of prints, there's many of them. >> oh, i love the golden gate. >> so beautiful. >> celebrating our 77th anniversary. >> so, we give you this, in order the take it home, you have to walk across the bridge. [laughter]. >> i can do it. [laughter]. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> of course, our pleasure.

>> yes, dear friends, i'm very happy to be back in san francisco because charlotte waits for me. [laughter]. >> i [inaudible] charlotte and i don't go in san francisco six years ago, so my english is very bad, and i am going to speak french. (speaking french). >> i'm very happy to be here again. first of all, because san francisco and paris are both very great cities, american and french cities and i cannot think with great emotion that between the american people and the french people, history has

given us the best of the friendships and our time tokt together, it called freedom, democracy, to the dignity of all human people, and certainly san francisco and paris are an emblem of the link that exists between the french and the american people. there's something very magical about san francisco, the golden gate that i know now well, but there's a style of life, there's an art of life, there's a way of living together but being different and respecting the freedom of each other. the other privilege for paris

is we've always played a role to create a very rich and strong relationship between the two cities, but also a very useful one. [inaudible] in the past with [inaudible], the foundations of this agreement [inaudible] and i will see later on my good friends who a couple of years ago told me that he was going to celebrate his birthday in paris and he would want toez personal happy moments that he would spend a moment in city hall where i would open the doors in this symbol of this human tie of this individual adventure that exists so much between paris and san

francisco. i have -- charlotte was a sweet person, she reminded me i was old and i was in paris now for 11 years, i had the opportunity to work with my great friend, thanks to tom horn, that's in the [inaudible] that this working relationship and eternal relationship with tom, so with the team amongst mr. lee, i could understand that the relationship between san francisco and paris is not just a friendship, it could be a very efficient relationship and i will have the pleasure tomorrow to visit various places where there's a common dynamic between paris and san francisco

have made innovations, technology and the spirit of enterprise and all those elements together enable a concrete relationship between paris and san francisco and even remember it last time, with had a virtual highway between san francisco and paris, we started this virtual highway, it had a lot of babies and a lot of [inaudible] in paris and in san francisco was created, were developed from this common belief that we had in innovation, in research and with the need of building economic development on new technology, on new ways of living and creating wealth and progress of the 21st century. and it's in this spirit that

with [inaudible] that i'm happy to salute with all my friendship, we are going to start a new period of our links, our ties, mayor lee is a very popular man, a very popular mayor and i want to know first the reputation of the people of san francisco through him and through his progress. we have another common link, we believe that innovation can be noble if it starts many the people, so from the intervention of people in the democracy, a dynamic democracy, of course with new cooperation, new act of cooperation, first of all, there's always innovation [inaudible] of working in a smart and

efficient way. we work together on the program as smart cities where we want san francisco -- other cities to be modern cities but also civilized cities which means that consider that everything we wish for as far as economic development is concerned must consider the environment also, and the quality of the planet on which we live. with mr. lee, we talked about all these questions and of course we are going encourage all of these new companies and everything that enables us to improve our cities and make them a better place to live and less polluted place to live, as may it in transportation,

management of energy, in san francisco and in paris, there are innovations that are certainly ahead of many other cities in the world and i want to learn from san francisco and of course paris is there for the san francisco team, may it be a development of electric transportation or automobiles or [inaudible] or the reuse of energy of heat to heat private buildings or public building by using waste water, i explained to mayor lee that a couple of years now, i worked with bill clinton on the isolation of public buildings and specifically schools so that every year, we could renovate

100 schools in paris and the children are in heated rooms but where we don't waste energy. these are subjects on which we have a lot of common ambition and where we'd like to exchange our dynamic efforts between san francisco and paris. but what would be a cooperation between san francisco and paris without culture? in san francisco, there's so much talent, so much genius, so much creation of cultural events that i want to open my doors of paris to them, [inaudible] that's an emblem that i created for the creative arts that come from new technology, i know there are fwraet creators in music and

classic art, they are home in paris, that is where i will welcome them. you have beautiful dancers and the director of the [inaudible] is here with us today, there are dancers from san francisco that i would love to welcome at the [inaudible] vil in paris, but we too, we have talent, we have some talent, we have a lot of passion for artistic creation so it may be in music and theatre and painting, we are ready to share a lot here in san francisco and i'm happy to have my trip be with the first visit of a french company in the united states, the great artist had its head in

[inaudible] that was in los angeles a couple of days ago, will be in berkeley tomorrow and then after that in new york of course, so there you are, that is how we are civilized together, how we are human beings that try to push ahead san francisco, paris, two cities that are destined to understand everything and do the maximum understanding because san francisco and paris believe in progress, know that it's difficult that progress of a factor of human development, we don't want to forget anybody, we want to shoulder each other, help each other so that the two cities, san francisco and paris be the most attractive cities in the world

but also the most smiling cities in the world, the most -- the cities that are worth your affection and that express to the rest of the world their taste of friendship, fraternity, friendship and for that we have to be together, we have to wan -- want to draoe yait toing and we want to make sure that this memorandum of understanding, this understanding between paris and san francisco be a final way of saying to each other it's happiness to live in both san francisco and paris together. thank you very much. [applause].

>> my presence to san francisco is maybe not as symbolic as the golden gate. i done have with me works of art that express when the banks of the san river won't have anymore cars that i started recently, but parisian artists know how to do things that we like a lot, so this is an object that is very symbolic of paris for you. [applause].

>> so, there's little christo and bakarage. >> what's wrong? what's wrong? >> [inaudible]. >> he's not happy? what's going on? >> how beautiful. i'm going to put your picture in it. beautiful. >> thank you, mayor. isn't the french language absolutely so exciting, but maybe because it's coming out of the mouth of this wonderful mayor. and i always thought we were great but didn't he make us

sound great? even better? and i do see that we have the fire chief here in case, you know, we have had an earthquake and fire, so we brought the chief, chief haze in, and also a former first lady, gina miskony, gina, she's right behind the photographer, her husband was mayor and his portrait is right up here. so, we're coming to the signing, more important, of the signing, but tom horn is the one as been said has been leading us, in fact, we had to put a leash on him and we have him guarded at the airport with security guards because he would be on that air france airplane almost every day if we let him so we won't let him go because he does a wonderful

job, he'll present a few words and then i'll present the mayor to signs the forof understanding, may i present tom horn. >> (speaking french). mayor lee, council general, we commemorate today the 16th anniversary of our sister city of cord signed in san francisco in 1976. during this period, we have twice received official visits of the mayor of paris and paris has received three different mayors of san francisco.

and each visit has led to projects and agreements between our two cities that have been beneficial and advantageous to each. there is even one exchange in the field of fashion wean the academy of art and university and the most famous fashion schools in paris that begin at the beginning of our relationship and continue stronger than ever today. gladys pamer, the director of the department of fashion,

gladys pamer, our sister city committee member is here today, we have worked closely in the area of public transit, thank tos you, mr. mayor, the urban furniture that you showed us in paris now exists throughout san francisco, whether it be the bus stops, public toilets or the french kiosks used to distribute newspapers or other products.

thanks to our relationship, we saw for the first time a successful bike share program and i still have my cart delebre that you gave each of us on our visit to paris. [laughter]. >> and i remember fondly sort of, my first [inaudible] that day in suit and tie with mayor newsom in pouring rain in paris in front of city hall.

like you in san francisco, reduction of pollutants and greenhouse gases is a priority. you've seen how bicycle lanes throughout san francisco, even on our famous hills and after too long a delay, we ant pate launching our bike share program in 2013. our two cities have been in the forefront.in the fields of high-tech and digital media.

digital sister cities. on your last visit in 2006 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of our partnership, we signed an accord being digital sister cities. this accord has facilitated numerous parisian company ins establishing companies in san francisco such as parisoma which we will visit tomorrow. and we see companies based in

san francisco that create branches in paris such as soef fee nova whose ceo, a member of the city sister committee is with us today. there are many other examples of successful and flourishing business and commercial relations between our two cities, an atmosphere made part in possible due to the close working relationship between our two close municipalities. finally, as each of the mayors before me, i must comment on the world of art and culture of which san francisco and paris are two world capitals.