Mr. Berçot is a graduate of the military Academy of Saint-Cyr-Coëtquidan, France, and joined the French Foreign Office (Quai d'Orsay) in 1985.

He has been posted as Deptuy Chief of Mission in Madagascar, Comoros Islands, Lebanon, Mali, Burundi and Colombia. In each of these posts, Mr. Berçot was in charge of institutional capacity building and development programs for these countries.

Mr. Berçot has also served as Vice-Governor of the French province Eure-et-Loir between 1994 and 1996. In this specific post, he was in charge of the coordination of economic and social initiatives for industrial development. In addition he insured that all legal and regulatory procedures of decisions taken by municipalities complied with pertinent French law.

Mr. Berçot is arriving from New York, where he was assigned to the French Mission at the United Nations in the Political Affairs section which included South-East Europe. The High Representative welcomes Mr. Bercot, and wishes him success in this demanding job. The Office of the High Representative will continue to give its full support to the OHR Regional Office in Mostar, now under Jean-Pierre Bercot.

The High Representative also expresses his gratitude to Ambassador Colin Munro, the former Head of OHR Mostar, for his commitment and dedication to implementing the Dayton Peace Agreement to the benefit of all the citizens of Mostar and of Herzegovina.

During Ambassador Munro's tenure OHR made significant progress in a number of areas including the adoption by the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton Government of the Law on amendments to the Law on Internal Affairs. Ambassador Munro pushed for positive developments in the reconstruction of the Stolac Mosque, and the establishment of the old Mostar Grammar School as a multi-ethnic school. Due to his efforts Bosniak children in Stolac no longer have to commute to Mostar to attend school. He also played an important role in brokering the Regional Memorandum of Understanding on Fire Fighting between Croatia, BiH and SFOR. Ambassador Munro's achievements were made in the face of the serious challenges of the unconstitutional "Croat Self Rule", the organised riots in April linked to the Hercegovacka Banka, and the systematic obstruction, which for a time prevented the Canton 7 Government from functioning.