The next generation meets Michaëlle Jean

Michaëlle Jean was born in 1957 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She was eleven years old when Canada granted political asylum to her parents, who were fleeing the repression of the dictatorial regime in their country of origin. Francophone, they settled in Quebec. Her family experienced the ordeal of forced exile and, like all refugees, the immense challenge of rebuilding their lives elsewhere, starting from scratch, gathering all their strength and experience, driven also by the desire to contribute, as full-fledged citizens, to the development of their adopted country.

At the University of Montreal, after earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature and Modern Languages ​​(Italian and Spanish), she completed a Master's degree in Comparative Literature. Scholarships enabled her to pursue further studies in Italy, at the University of Perugia, the University of Florence, and the Catholic University of Milan. Michaëlle Jean is fluent in five languages: French, English, Italian, Spanish, and Creole, and can also read Portuguese.

Alongside her studies, Michaëlle Jean campaigned for more than ten years within the feminist movement in Quebec and contributed to the establishment of a network of emergency shelters for women victims of domestic violence and their children throughout Quebec and in other Canadian provinces.

From 1988 to 2005, Michaëlle Jean enjoyed a brilliant career as a journalist and news anchor on Canadian public television, on both French and English language networks. She also participated in and collaborated on several documentary films directed by her husband, filmmaker, essayist, and philosopher Jean-Daniel Lafond.

In 2005, she was appointed Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada, the first black woman to hold the country's highest constitutional office, which she carried out with extraordinary dynamism for a five-year term.

Upon the end of her term on October 1, 2010 , the United Nations immediately called upon her, as UNESCO Special Envoy, to support reconstruction efforts in Haiti, her native country, which had been devastated that same year by a powerful earthquake. From 2011 to 2014, she also served as Chancellor of the University of Ottawa.

In 2014, Michaëlle Jean was elected Secretary General of the Francophonie, the first woman to lead this multilateral entity comprising 88 states and governments across 5 continents.

A stateswoman and seasoned diplomat, Michaëlle Jean's words resonate and mobilize people throughout the multilateral sphere, within the UN, in New York and Geneva, and even at the Security Council, as well as within the European Union, the European Parliament, the OECD, and the African Union. She is known and respected for her convictions, her profound understanding of universal humanist values, and her unwavering commitment to the principles and rules of democracy, the rule of law, justice, and the rights and freedoms she never compromises.

With her husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, she has co-chaired the Michaëlle Jean Foundation since 2010. The Foundation's programs support citizen platforms and initiatives alongside some of Canada's most vulnerable and marginalized youth, who are nonetheless highly motivated, creative, and vigorously mobilized against exclusion. Michaëlle Jean is also Chancellor of United College at the University of Waterloo, Ontario.