Leyla Perrone-Moises, who wrote the best book on the subject, says the place of his arrival is unknown Since then, Binot Paulmier de Gonneville's purported feat as the first European to arrive in Southern Brazil, is celebrated annually both in his hometown of Honfleur, in Normandy (France), and curiously in the island of São Francisco do Sul in Brazil, where a memorial plate has been erected commemorating the French explorer's arrival in 1504, notwithstanding the affair is more of a tale than a proven fact. References French explorers