A man apart. This October 18, 1982, Christine Ockrent opens the television news of Antenne 2, the serious tone. “Pierre Mendès France died this morning “, announces the star presenter. “France has just lost one of its greatest sons”, she continues, quoting the words of the President of the Republic, François Mitterrand. Emmanuel Macron was not 5 years old when the ashes of the former resistant, President of the Council under the IVe Republic for a few months (from June 1954 to February 1955), are dispersed in his residence in Louviers (Eure). But forty years later, the youngest Head of State of the Ve République intends to pay homage to the man who embodies, in its eyes, the “duty and conscience” and from which he says he was inspired.
A lunch bringing together around fifteen people is to take place on Tuesday, October 18 in the Elysée ambassadors’ lounge to commemorate the memory of “PMF”, “the French politician of the IVe Republic which dug the deepest trace, marked the strongest imprint, and which leaves the most vivid memory.wrote The world upon his death in 1982. A figure who, like Georges Pompidou, François Mitterrand or General de Gaulle, ” account “ for Emmanuel Macron, assure his relatives.
Around the table for this tribute lunch, part of the Mendès France family, including the grandson, Tristan, as well as his mother, Joan, but also the president of the Pierre Mendès France institute, François Loncle, former deputy for Eure, the Minister for the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu, president of the department of Eure, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, journalist Anne Sinclair or former industrialist and press man Claude Perdriel who must arrive with the number daily zero The Morning of Paris, which had devoted its front page to PMF. Robert Badinter, former Keeper of the Seals and architect of the abolition of the death penalty, and his wife, Elisabeth, were excused.
Request for pantheonization
An intimate tribute, therefore, favored by the Head of State at a more conventional and, perhaps, more impersonal ceremony. “Emmanuel Macron wants to listen to us”, explains François Loncle. The opportunity, for the president of the institute Pierre Mendès France, to slip the request for pantheonization of the statesman. A request that has all its meaning, said the Elysée, and which could take place in 2024 for the 70e anniversary of the arrival at the presidency of the Council of Mendès France.
Bachelor at 15, Pierre Mendès France entered politics at 16 with the radical socialists, to fight against the rise of fascism and because he was fascinated by Edouard Herriot. All his life, he will describe himself as a “leftist”, “too radical for socialists and too socialist for radicals”. Supporter of François Mitterrand in 1981 but craftsman of the second left carried by Michel Rocard, he became, after his escape from the prison of Clermont-Ferrand in 1941, where he was imprisoned by the Vichy regime, a ” soldier “ of General de Gaulle. A great admirer of the General, he will oppose, however, de Gaulle who had become a politician and will criticize his exercise of power which he considers too personal by fighting in 1958, against the investiture of the General and the referendum for the Ve Republic. “I do not accept blank checks”he explained.
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