JK Rowling made French knight

PARIS (AP) —
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling brought a second French Legion of Honor award
into her family on Tuesday, decades after her great-grandfather received the honor
for battlefield courage during World War I.

President Nicolas Sarkozy bestowed the title of knight in the Legion of Honor on Rowling,
who used her acceptance speech to apologize for the quality of her French accent
and for having given one of the villains in her series a French name.

"I cannot say that I think that I truly deserve it, but the Legion of Honor
has a particular and personal meaning,"
she said in a ceremony in an ornate presidential palace ballroom.

One of her great-grandfathers, who was French, had received it in 1924
for his courage in the Battle of Verdun during the First World War, she said.

Rowling also thanked her readers in France "for not having held a grudge against me
for having given a French name to my evil character" in the series — Lord Voldemort.

"I can assure you that no anti-French feeling was at the origin of this choice,"
she said.
"As a Francophile, I have always been proud of my French blood.
But I needed a name that evokes both power and exoticism."

"Voldemort himself is 100-percent English,"
Rowling said in French, pleading with the audience that included young French teens
to forgive her accent. She noted that she had once taught French in Scotland.

Sarkozy hailed her for entrancing countless French children.

Other foreign celebrities who've been inducted into the Legion of Honor
include American actor Jerry Lewis, director Steven Spielberg,
singer Barbra Streisand and Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer

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JK Rowling