Emmanuel Macron sent a call to the mayors of France Thursday in Saint-Raphael, in the Var, during the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the landing of Provence, inviting them to honor the African fighters by baptizing streets and squares of French communes.
These men "tell France what it is deeply"
"Today I call on the mayors of France to bring to life, by the name of our streets and squares, by our monuments and our ceremonies, the memory of those men who make Africa proud and tell France what it is deeply: an engagement, an attachment to freedom and greatness, a spirit of resistance that unites in courage, "launched the head of state during his speech.
The President of the Republic spoke at the end of a ceremony commemorating the landing of Provence August 15, 1944 at the national necropolis of Boulouris, in the Var, where lie 464 fighters of the 1st French army.
They "did not have the glory and esteem that their bravery justified"
Traditionally, this anniversary is an opportunity to salute the contribution of soldiers from former French colonies to the Liberation, particularly from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. "The vast majority of the soldiers of the greatest force of the French army of the Liberation came from Africa: French of North Africa, black feet, tirailleurs Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian, Zouaves, Spahis, Goumiers, skirmishers that they were called Senegalese but actually came from all over Sub-Saharan Africa, and among them Guineans, Ivorians, "Emmanuel Macron enumerated.
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"These African fighters, for many decades, have not had the glory and the esteem that their bravery justified." France has a part of Africa in it, and on this soil of Provence, this part was that of blood. poured, "he said, before an audience of veterans and former resistance fighters. "They did the honor and greatness of France, but who today remembers their name, their faces?", He said.
"We will not forget anything or anyone"
"Thousands of people have sacrificed themselves to defend a distant land, a land often unknown, a land never before crossed, a land to which they have forever mingled their blood," said the head of state. , in front of his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as Ivorian presidents Alassane Ouattara and Guinean Alpha Condé. The latter insisted on the "shared memory of the French and African people", emphasizing that without the "sacrifice" of African fighters, "our humanity would not continue to fight for peace".
Emmanuel Macron also paid tribute to the Resistance fighters, to the Free French from the metropolis, as well as the fighters of the Overseas, dissidents of the West Indies, Guyanese, Reunionese, Tahitians and New Caledonians who, all, have "given back to our country his freedom and dignity ". "The glory of all the soldiers of the Liberation is immense and our gratitude in return must be imperishable, and we will not forget anything or anyone," he promised, urging the youth to fight "against all obscurantism, against ignorance, against forgetting too. "