At the ceremony, French Ambassador to Vietnam Bertrand Lortholory presented the order to Mr. Tung.

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 French Ambassador to Vietnam Bertrand Lortholory speaking at the event

The title "Knight" is the first level of the Order of Arts and Letters that conferred by the Minister of Culture of France on an individual with great contributions to arts and letters or other related fields.

Addressing the award ceremony, the French Ambassador to Vietnam praised the awardee’s contributions to the friendship and cooperation between Vietnam and France.

He stress that Mr. Dang Thanh Tung has made a considerable contribution to developing the Francophone movement in Vietnam, the cooperation on archives between between the two countries and the Vietnam-France traditional relationship as a whole.

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 French Ambassador to Vietnam Bertrand Lortholory presenting the order to Mr. Dang Thanh Tung

He also congratulated Mr. Tung on the noble award from the French Government.

For his part, Mr. Tung thanked the French Government and Vietnamese Government that have facilitated the cooperation between the State Records Management and Archives Department of Vietnam and the National Archives of France. He said, he felt honored to receive the order, and pledged to continue fostering cooperation between the two archives agencies in particular and traditional relations between the two countries in general.

Mr. Dang Thanh Tung graduated from the National School for the Judiciary in Bordeaux, France. He used to work at the Military Court of the Hanoi Capital Military Zone (the forerunner of the current High Command of Hanoi Capital), and then became the Chief Judge of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

With his profound knowledge of law making and enforcement, Mr. Tung has actively fostered Vietnam’s international cooperation with other countries, including France, in this sector. Particularly, he has made a significant contribution to the success of the Vietnam-France Legal House.

In 2015, he was appointed to the Director of the State Records Management and Archives Department of Vietnam. In his new position, he continued his efforts to expand cooperation with France and other French-speaking countries.

In 2016, Mr. Tung and his French counterpart signed a cooperation agreement on archives, bringing the ties between the State Records Management and Archives Department of Vietnam and the National Archives of France to a new high level. Within the framework of this deal, the two sides cooperate closely with each other in promoting the values of historical documents in French – precious memories of the two countries in a historical period of time.

He initiated a number of activities to promote Vietnam-France traditional relations in 2017, such as exhibition on archives titled “French architect inside Hanoi” in October 2017 in Hanoi, exhibition on French culture featured in archived documents to be opened on December 2017 in Hanoi, and seminar overviewing Vietnam-France shared heritages over the past 100 years.

Mr. Tung has spared no effort over the past years to expand bilateral cooperation between Vietnam and France on culture, archives and related fields.

 Reported by Thu Nguyen – Lam Anh