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After the traditional ceremonies of 11-November at the Arc de Triomphe, Emmanuel Macron inaugurates in Paris on Monday a monument dedicated to French soldiers killed in overseas operations. Highly anticipated by the military, this monument found its place in the park André Citroën, in the south of Paris, a few steps from the Hexagon Balard which gathers the staffs of the French armies.
Six bronze soldiers, in columns of three, were erected in the heart of the André Citroën Park with the prospect of the Seine below. These six soldiers are particularly realistic because the sculptor Stephane Vigny represented real engaged, six volunteers who served him as model. The work is anchored on a dark colored forecourt. This is the first monument to the dead by Stéphane Vigny.
" This sculpture represents six military porters, five men and one woman, and as the project was also to represent the entire army, we also have two navy bearers, two army carriers and two carriers of the air force, details the artist. These carriers are represented on the scale, without base, on the slab. They are in bronze and, between them, they draw with the hand which carries the form of the coffin but it is not present. It is simply by the position of the hands and shoulders, and the position of the bodies of these six carriers, that we perceive what is not visible in this monument: the coffin. For me, it was to symbolize the lack or absence. They carry the souls of their brothers in arms. "
Some 549 soldiers killed in Opex since 1963
Around the monument are engraved 549 names. Those soldiers killed, since 1963, in external operation. In Chad, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso or Mali, like the sergeant fell Ronan Pointot there only ten days between Gao and Menaka, killed by an explosive device. This place was highly anticipated by the military community and especially the families of soldiers, said Céline Roguet, who lost her husband in 2003 in Côte d'Ivoire. Their daughter was then only one year old.
For her, this place of memory fills a void. " It's a recognition to see the names of these men who gave their lives for the French are safe," says the young woman. Now, it took a long time, it was long for sure, while it is still years that there are soldiers killed in Opex, it's not new. After the monument in itself, it touches me because at least they are not forgotten and I know that my daughter, it makes him happy that there is this monument. "
A memorial to welcome other names
The particularity of this memorial is that it is intended to accommodate other names, which is not the case of traditional places of memory. Unlike the Douaumont memorial , for the First World War, or that of Mount Valerian, for the Second, this memorial for French soldiers killed abroad will not be that of a generation of fighters, here the page remains open.
" The page remains open, insists General Francois Lecointre, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. Ronan Pointot is probably not the last, but it is not a fourth generation fire because it is not a generation. Our country and our society were marked by the generation of 14-18, by the generation of 39-45, by the generation of the war of Algeria, by this moment when a whole society regenerates in a certain way. It's horrible to say that but it's the truth. It regenerates in suffering that moral conscience which makes of it a nation. These great moments do not exist any more but so far, it is necessary that our society takes the measure that even if there is not a new generation which crosses these sufferings, it must nevertheless continue thinking about the common sufferings, the sufferings of the best of their children and the need to continue to awaken and nurture this moral conscience to build the nation of tomorrow. "
Today, some 7,000 soldiers are deployed abroad, including 4,500 as part of Operation Barkhane in the Sahel .