A survivor of the Armenian genocide, stateless and communist soon in the Pantheon: Emmanuel Macron announced on Sunday the entry of Missak Manouchian, hero of the Resistance, into the temple of personalities who have marked the history of the French nation.
“Missak Manouchian carries a part of our greatness”, he “embodies the universal values” of freedom, equality, fraternity in the name of which he “defended the Republic”, declared the presidency in a press release.
He will enter the Pantheon on February 21, 2024, just 80 years after his death, said the Elysée. Since 2017, Emmanuel Macron has already pantheonized Simone Veil, Maurice Genevoix and Joséphine Baker.
Missak will enter the Republican temple “accompanied by Mélinée”, his wife of Armenian origin, resistant like him, who survived him 45 years and rests at his side in the cemetery of Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), said the presidency.
It was the wish of the family, as for Simone Veil and her husband Antoine. The Manouchian couple thus remains united in death even if Mélinée is not herself honored.
The president also pays homage, through him, to all his foreign comrades in arms, Spaniards, Italians or Jews from Central Europe. “The blood shed for France has the same color for all”, underlines the Elysée.
The announcement coincided with the 83rd anniversary of the Appeal of June 18, celebrated each year at the Fort du Mont-Valérien, near Paris, where stands the Memorial of Fighting France, struck with an imposing Cross of Lorraine.
First for a president, Emmanuel Macron first gathered in the clearing of the Fusillés, where Missak Manouchian and 21 of his comrades in arms were executed by the German army on February 21, 1944.
A thousand resistance fighters and hostages suffered the same fate there from 1941 to 1944. They were Communists (65%), foreigners (20%) or Jews (17%), all symbols hated by the Nazis.
Missak Manouchian becomes the first foreign resistant and the first communist to enter the temple of the great figures of the Republic, alongside Voltaire, Victor Hugo or Marie Curie.
Is thus celebrated “the unity of the memories of the Resistance”, communist and Gaullist, long rivals, underlines the Elysée.
A unity hailed on Sunday in the political class.
Manouchian symbolizes “a certain idea of ??France (..), made up of citizens of all origins, united by universal values”, greeted the National Secretary of the Communist Party, Fabien Roussel.
On the Insoumis side, Jean-Luc Mélenchon regretted however that Mélinée, a “warrior” just like him, only followed him to the Pantheon and that the role of women in the Resistance was “not often enough mentioned”.
The Republicans are also hailed a “meaningful message”, “a beautiful symbol”, a “fair recognition”.
“It’s a great day, it’s the entry with him of his foreign brothers in arms, stateless people in the Pantheon. He was French before his time, free”, testified his great-niece, Katia Guiragossian.
At the same time, 91 resistance fighters and foreign hostages shot at Mont-Valérien were also recognized as “dead for France” on Sunday.
A refugee in France in 1925, Missak Manouchian joined the communist resistance in 1943 where he distinguished himself at the head of a very active network before being arrested and shot by the Germans on February 21, 1944.
Before him, eight members of the Resistance have already been honored since the transfer of the ashes of Jean Moulin in 1964, including four – Pierre Brossolette, Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Germaine Tillion and Jean Zay – under François Hollande in 2015.
Celebrated by Aragon and Léo Ferré – whose song resounded in the clearing of the Fusillés – Missak Manouchian also entered the collective memory with the “Red Poster”, posted in Paris and certain major cities of France by Nazi propaganda during his trial to appoint his group to vindictiveness.
Emmanuel Macron also decorated a former resistant, Robert Birenbaum, like him from the group of Francs-tireurs et partisans? Immigrant labor (FTP-MOI).
The president, accompanied by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and members of the government, then heard the Appeal of June 18, read by actor Philippe Torreton, and the Chant des Partisans before a time of meditation in the crypt of Mont- Valérien, where 16 resistance fighters, officers and soldiers who died for France in 1939-45 are buried, as well as Hubert Germain, the last Companion of the Liberation.
The tribute paid on Sunday is part of a long memorial sequence around the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War which will continue in 2024 with the Normandy landings and the Liberation of Paris.
06/18/2023 18:03:34 – Mont Valérien (France) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP