Chirac makes Cesária Évora member of French Legion of Honor


Cape Verdean singer Cesária Évora has been distinguished with the French Legion of Honor by French President Jacques Chirac. The proposal came from France’s Delegate Minister for Cooperation, Bigitte Gerardin. The distinction was formally given to Évora yesterday in Paris, according to the Fench Embassy in Praia.

Cesária Évora thus enters the select group of French legionnaires in Cape Verde. Priot to her, only poet José Lopes, a prominent latinist and admirer of French culture, had been considered worthy of such a distinction, during the first half of the 20th century.

France has, indeed, always been a special country for Cesária Évora. It was in Paris in the 1980s that the barefoot diva, as she became known in that European country, began her conquest of the world music market.

Source: ASemanaOnline (April 27, 2007)