Ariane Daguin, La Médaille d’Or de La Renaissance Française

Ariane Daguin is the owner and CEO of D’Artagnan, the renowned gourmet food purveyor. Famous for providing humanely-raised meats, from game and foie gras to organic chicken and prepared charcuterie, the name D’Artagnan is synonymous with top-quality food produced with care.

For a 7th generation of a long line of chefs in Gascogne, Southwest France, a career in food might have seemed natural, but Ariane decided to pursue an academic degree at Columbia University.

While working part-time for a New York pâté producer, Ariane was in the right place when the opportunity to market the first domestically produced foie gras presented itself. She founded D’Artagnan in 1985 as the first purveyor of game and foie gras in the U.S. Devoted advocates for natural, sustainable and humane production, Ariane and D’Artagnan have been at the forefront of the organic movement in America, pioneering organic, free-range chicken (years before the USDA allowed the word “organic” on the label) and humanely-raised veal.

This passionate path towards excellence without compromise takes its roots in a deep respect of French Gastronomy and French traditional animal husbandry. In addition to running D’Artagnan, developing new products and researching innovative and ecologically responsible methods of production, Ariane is on the board of the French-American Chamber of Commerce in NY, and she is on the City Harvest Food Board.

Recognized in 1994 by The James Beard Foundation “Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America,” Ariane is now a member of the Awards Committee. In 2005 Ariane received the “Lifetime Achievement Award” from Bon Appetit magazine and, in September 2005, was named both Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Légion d’honneur and Officier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite.

Her memoir, D’Artagnan à New York, was published by Grasset in 2010. She lives in New York City with her daughter Alix.

Marie-Christine Koop, La Médaille d’Or des Valeurs Francophones

Dr. Marie-Christine Weidmann Koop is originally from Cannes, where she grew up. She moved to the United States as a student and holds a Ph.D. from Michigan State University. She is professor of French and Director of the French Summer Institute at the University of North Texas in Denton, where she teaches advanced cou

rses in French civilization and culture. She has published several books and articles, mostly on issues related to contemporary France, and she is a regular presenter at national and international conferences.

She is currently editing a forthcoming volume on the French education system. Her contributions to the profession have been recognized by her university, and she is the recipient of several national and international awards. She was named a Knight, and then an Officer, in the French Order of Academic Palms and she received a medal from the Quebec Order of Francophones in America.

She has also received several national awards in the United States: Excellence in Teaching Award from the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) and the Nelson Brooks Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Culture from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). She has secured several grants from the American, French, Belgian, Swiss and Quebec governments to organize seminars for French teachers abroad. She was department chair for eight years and is past president of the American Association of Teachers of French.

She is now Assistant Editor for The French Review and serves on the editorial board of Contemporary French Civilization.

Florent Masse, La Médaille d’Or du Rayonnement Cultural

Florent Masse is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of French and Italian and Director of L’Avant-Scène, the French Theater Workshop at Princeton University. He is the Artistic Director of Seuls en Scène, Princeton French Theater Festival that he has curated annually since its creation in 2012.

Alongside his studies at the University of Lille, he trained as an actor and director at Lille National Theater under Daniel Mesguich and later pursued his theater studies at Amherst College, MA as a Levy-Despas Fellow and teaching assistant in the Department of French (1999-2001).

This is when he created the program of L’Avant-Scène, which originally mixes linguistic and dramatic training. AtPrinceton since 2001, Florent Masse has been able to develop and enrich L’Avant-Scène’s curricular and co-curricular programs. He has directed about fifty full-length productions of popular and celebrated plays in the French theatrical canon, including plays by Feydeau, Molière, Racine, Corneille, Claudel, Marivaux, Musset, Ionesco, Lagarce, Koltès and Pommerat. He has collaborated with Princeton University Center for French Studies, and has lectured on the program of L’Avant-Scène at various institutions.

He has initiated several theater enrichment programs for his students abroad, and has brought to Princeton a list of prominent French theater artists to perform or direct master classes such as Guillaume Gallienne, Pascal Rambert, Pierre Niney, Sandy Ouvrier, Loic Corbery, Daniel Mesguich, Clément Hervieu-Léger, Olivier Py, Denis Guénoun, Lukas Hemleb, Judith Henry, Nicolas Bouchaud, Arthur Nauzyciel, Audrey Bonnet, Anne Alvaro, Guillaume Vincent, Xavier Gallais, Caroline Guiela Nguyen, Stanislas Roquette, Tiago Rodrigues, Rodolphe Dana, Elise Vigier, Mohamed El Kathib, and Benjamin Lazar.

In January 2017, he was named Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by French Minister of Culture Audrey Azoulay for his attachment to French culture and his action in favor of its promotion in the United States.