On Wednesday, resistance fighter Missak Manouchian will enter the Pantheon, 80 years to the day after his execution. But how does pantheonization work, and what are the criteria for entering this secular temple in homage to the great men and women of the nation? The Pantheon is the secular necropolis of the “Great Men”, whose “homeland is grateful” and wants to honor the memory.
The monument dominates the Sainte-Geneviève mountain, one of the mounds of Paris. Voltaire (in 1791), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were among the first to enter.