Today's Date:

President Bachelet,

Now that the Chilean people have just demonstrated their confidence in you by electing you president of your country, I want to extend to you, with this message of friendship, my most sincere congratulations.

I do not doubt that under your leadership, Chile, who these past few years has provided the world with an example of wisdom and progress, will maintain her objective on the domestic front of building a fair, dynamic society and, externally, strengthening a more mutually-supportive international community, committed to the collective quest for solutions to the problems of our time.

Chile and France are naturally destined to cooperate closely in this vast undertaking. I should like us together to develop our political, cultural and economic relations. I wish us to work together for a more balanced world, one more conducive to the development of peoples. This is what I shall have the pleasure of discussing with you this year.

(complimentary close, with handwritten addition)./.