PARIS, February 21 (Reuters) – Missak and Mélinée Manouchian, two resistance fighters against Nazi Germany, and around twenty of their comrades, most of whom are of foreign origin like them, will enter the Pantheon on Wednesday during a ceremony chaired by Emmanuel Macron .
Worker, poet, communist activist of Armenian origin born in 1906 in the Ottoman Empire, Missak Manouchian was the first foreign resistance fighter to gain access to the Pantheon.
His entry comes 80 years to the day after his execution by the Nazis, at the age of 37, at the Mont-Valérien fortress, near Paris, where a vigil took place Tuesday evening.
He will be accompanied by his wife, Mélinée Manouchian, also a resistance fighter of Armenian origin, who died in 1989. Will also enter in a symbolic way, via the inscription of their names inside the monument, 23 comrades in arms, most of them shot at the same time as him.
The ceremony was the subject of a contest between Emmanuel Macron and the leader of the National Rally (RN) Marine Le Pen, who announced her arrival at the ceremony despite the reservations expressed by the president.
In an interview published Monday in the daily l’Humanité, the head of state believes that “the far-right forces would be inspired not to be present given the nature of Manouchian’s fight.”
“THE WILL” TO BE FRENCH
These entries will be added to those of other resistance fighters from the Second World War such as Jean Moulin, Pierre Brossolette, Jean Zay, Germaine Tillion and Geneviève Anthonioz de Gaulle.
After Joséphine Baker, Missak Manouchian is the second personality to be welcomed into the Pantheon without being born French. Unlike the artist born in the United States, Missak Manouchian never obtained this nationality, which he had requested twice.
Among the young fighters shot at the same time as him, many were also foreigners (Poles, Hungarians, Italians, Spaniards, Romanians). “This will be an opportunity to remember that being French does not depend on origin, religion, first name, but on will,” we emphasize at the Elysée.
The bodies of Missak and Mélinée Manouchian, who until now rested in the cemetery of Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), will be transferred to the Pantheon.
Since his arrival at the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron has organized the entry into the Pantheon of former minister Simone Veil, writer Maurice Genevoix and Joséphine Baker.
He announced on February 14 that he wanted to welcome the recently deceased former Minister of Justice Robert Badinter, who abolished the death penalty in France in 1981. (Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, edited by Kate Entringer)