Since December 2022, Nagorno-Karabakh, or the Republic of Artsakh, has been under a strict blockade by Azerbaijan. The region, which has been the scene of heavy fighting, is home to 120,000 people of Armenian descent. This Thursday, August 31 on France 2, the show Le Grand Échiquier is organizing a special evening to support Armenia, a landlocked country in the Caucasus.
Several artists and personalities of Armenian origin will be present at this evening, hosted by journalist Claire Chazal and musician André Manoukian, in the magnificent setting of the Royal Opera of Versailles.
Around the table, we will notably find the actor and director Simon Abkarian, who will discuss his relationship to the songs of Charles Aznavour that his mother listened to while crying. The evening will also be an opportunity to pay tribute to the singer who died in 2018 as well as to Missak Manouchian. The resistant, figure of the Red Poster, will enter the Pantheon in February 2024, with his wife Mélinée, also resistant.
The leitmotif of all the guests of the evening, including the cellist Astrig Siranossian or the writer Sylvain Tesson: despite the genocide of the Armenians by Turkey in 1915 and the war which threatens again with Azerbaijan, no question for this modest people to victimize themselves.
The situation remains worrying in Nagorno-Karabakh. MEPs visited the Lachin Corridor in June, the last road open and then blocked by Azerbaijani soldiers. On Wednesday August 30, several French politicians from all sides, from Anne Hidalgo to Xavier Bertrand, went to the same place, accompanying trucks loaded with humanitarian aid. The road remained closed in front of the convoy.
The Grand Chessboard special Armenia, presented by Claire Chazal and André Manoukian, Thursday August 31 at 9:10 p.m., on France 2.
