To the sound of the bugle, Emmanuel Macron gathered on Sunday morning in front of the small war memorial at Dizy-le-Gros in the Aisne, in honor of the 60,000 dead in the "Battle of Montcornet" where in the midst of a debacle illustrated in May 1940 a still unknown colonel, Charles de Gaulle. Scheduled for a long time, this presidential trip is the first, in more than two months, not to be devoted to the fight against the coronavirus.
The celebration of a "courageous defeat"
In celebrating this "courageous defeat", which however showed that the French army had managed to contain the German army for a few hours, Emmanuel Macron kicks off a series of celebrations this year to honor "the man of June 18 "and his" spirit of resistance ".
In this small village of 760 inhabitants near Laon, whose access roads were cordoned off by the gendarmerie, only a handful of guests welcomed the Head of State, due to health precautions. Among them, descendants of soldiers who fell in combat at Dizy on May 16, 1940, members of the 3rd regiment of armored car soldiers. "We are very honored because it is the first time that we have received a president, but also for the tribute to the killed soldiers and their families. But also a little sad that, because of the Covid, we cannot make the population benefit from it, "said Mayor Jean-Marie Bouché.
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"Straighten up and resume the great march of its destiny"
Emmanuel Macron then had to go to La-Ville-aux-Bois-les-Dizy for a speech in homage to the action of Charles de Gaulle who launched on May 17, 1940 the 4th battleship division in an attempt to slow the rapid advance of the Wehrmacht in the north and east of France. The "Battle of Montcornet" failed but was later considered a "courageous defeat", one of the few counterattacks showing that the French army could put the Germans in trouble. "It is from there" that "hope" has "grown and ended by what has been called the liberation of France", said de Gaulle when he returned to the scene, as president, a quarter century later.
In his speech, Emmanuel Macron estimated that the founder of the Fifth Republic embodied "the French spirit". "The French spirit which always allows the people of France to recover and resume the great march of their destiny, the French spirit which never resolves itself to defeat, which chooses conquest and embraces daring", a he declared. If Emmanuel Macron did not make an explicit reference to the health crisis triggered by the new coronavirus, one could detect in his speech many parallels. "Remember this de Gaulle confident in victory," he said.
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A call to unity
The head of state also invoked one of the great Gaullian themes: the unity of the nation. "France is only strong when it is united," said Emmanuel Macron, citing Charles de Gaulle. A unity that the political class today seems to have a hard time finding in the crisis that the country is going through.