past tense

Bonjour à tous, I would like to know why this sentence has avoir and not avait;

The sentence is "le premiers européens à avoir rencontré les inuits..........."

If I translate this sentence it would be "the first europeans to have met the inuits....."

Is this translation correct? I thought it would be "a eu rencontré"

Merci d'avance.

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Permalink Reply by Ed la mouette on December 22, 2010 at 5:54pm

Hi,

"A eu rencontré" doesn't exist (well in fact, it does, but in an extremely rare form of speech that nobody uses).

Your translation is correct. Is is "avoir" for the same reason that it its "to have met" in english. Let me know if you don't see what i mean, but i'm not sure how to explain that.