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T’es bonne! Fière de toi! You rock! T’es capable!

Mayor Valérie Plante looks down at the handwritten inspirational sticky notes that mark her spot at the round wood table.

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“It has been a long week and I’m tired — my team left these to boost my energy,” a laughing Plante tells a reporter as she sits down for a Friday afternoon interview in her second-floor, corner office at Montreal city hall.

It has been a long year since she and her Projet Montréal party came to power in November 2017. “It feels more like three years,” she says.

Montreal’s boisterous mayor seems uncharacteristically lethargic after a week that included a two-day council meeting, six press conferences and a tricky balancing act as she rolled out city hall’s red carpet for Premier François Legault, her polar opposite on many issues but a crucial potential partner.

Despite the fatigue, there are flashes of her trademark enthusiasm and self-confidence, especially when she discusses mobility and the métro Pink Line she covets.