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I found this image of a medal figuring Concorde and a globe with two contours of continents, before and after Concorde, expressing the new speed of air transport with a motto "May Concorde bring people closer." ("Que Concorde rapproche les hommes").

As I find this material extremely relevant to express the global geography of time-space during the supersonic period, to I would like to know more about it:

  • Where does this medal and motto come from?
  • Was it present onboard?
  • Was it used in other forms of communication?

enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ Another medal with the same motto. $\endgroup$
    – mins
    Jan 28, 2016 at 20:20
  • $\begingroup$ Re: "may (the) Concorde bring people closer together". (Try Larousse.) See the question on French.SE for the language focus on the expression. There is a reference to 1975 here, don't know how reliable that is; doesn't appear on the wiki entry for the artist. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – user13241
    Jan 29, 2016 at 16:00
  • $\begingroup$ I see Antarctica is still as far away as ever... $\endgroup$
    – Vikki
    Apr 22, 2019 at 3:09

1 Answer 1

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That medal is a copy of one that was presented to Queen Elizabeth II by M. Ziegler (S.N.I.A.S) during a state visit by the queen to France in 1972, sometime between 15–19 May. The most likely date would have been 18 May, when she visited a SNIAS helicoper factory and was accompanied by Mr. Ziegler.

It was presented to commemorate the intention to build the 'Concorde' for commercial supersonic flying and currently sits in the Royal Collection Trust. "M. Ziegler" is Monsieur Henri Ziegler, who passed away in 1998 at age 91.

"In 1968, he was appointed to run Sud-Aviation, a leading aircraft manufacturer in the south of France, and charged with reorganizing the badly splintered aircraft industry. Sud-Aviation was later absorbed by the larger Societe Nationale Industrielle Aerospatiale, or Snia, which in 1984, as the core of the French aerospace industry, was renamed Aerospatiale S.A."

That is where the "S.N.I.A.S." comes from, "Société nationale industrielle aérospatiale". The Concorde was built by British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) and Sud Aviation. Mr. Ziegler was instrumental to the partnership, and was seen by some, at the time, as a traitor to France for suggesting it.

I think it is fair to say that this motto was coined by Ziegler for the creation of the medal, likely to express his gratitude for England's role in the partnership, but it is not the official motto of the Concorde.

British Airways' slogan for the Concorde was "Arrive before you leave." I honestly don't remember, nor can I find, a French slogan for the Concorde, but the slogan for Air France is "France is in the air."

It was a lot of fun researching the answer for this.

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