It is a great pleasure for me to report about your colleague and my friend François Mignard. I know him since now 43 years and shared with him some scientific adventures. If, because of my age, I had to leave the Gaia project, I have followed the tremendous work done since by François Mignard and noticed that, despite his masterly played role as the conductor of the Gaia orchestra, he kept an important scientific activity. Actually, Gaia is far from being all his scientific achievements. And this is what I shall try to convince you.