An investigation was opened by the prosecution of Limoges after the discovery, Friday August 21, of "negationist inscriptions" on the Memory Center of Oradour-sur-Glane (Haute-Vienne), scene of a terrible massacre in June 1944.

On a photo uploaded by Le Populaire du Center, we see the word "martyr" scratched in the paint, a blue tarpaulin covering inscriptions. According to the newspaper, "the word 'liar' has been added as well as a reference to a revisionist and to the theories that regularly resurface about the martyr village of Upper Viennese."

Revisionist inscriptions at #oradour sur Glane. https://t.co/IdmGphdrbz pic.twitter.com/WlLx7UtIPq

- Populaire du Center (@lepopulaire_fr) August 21, 2020

An "unspeakable act"

President Emmanuel Macron condemned on Saturday with "the greatest firmness this unspeakable act". "He gives his full support to the mayor and the town. He assures them that everything will be done so that the perpetrators of this act are brought to justice," communicated the Elysee.

In a tweet, Prime Minister Jean Castex assured Friday that "everything is done so that the perpetrators of these infamous acts answer to justice". "I learned with anger and consternation of the degradation of the Oradour-sur-Glane Memory Center. To soil this place of meditation is also to soil the memory of our martyrs", he adds.

I learned with anger and dismay of the degradation of the memory center of Oradour-sur-Glane.
To soil this place of meditation is also to soil the memory of our martyrs.
Everything is done to ensure that the perpetrators of these infamous acts answer to justice.

- Jean Castex (@JeanCASTEX) August 21, 2020

The Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, for his part mentioned in a tweet "negationist inscriptions" and speaks of "spitting on the memory of our martyrs".

On June 10, 1944, the SS Das Reich division had killed 642 villagers in Oradour-sur-Glane. The Germans had rounded up the men in the village barns and shot them. They had gathered women and children in the church before setting it on fire.

The Memory Center, opened in 1996, explains to visitors to the ruins of the martyred village, around 300,000 people each year, the background to the massacre.

This town in Haute-Vienne has entered collective memory as the symbol of the atrocities of the # 2GM. pic.twitter.com/Usd4pEeiH2

- Stéphanie Trouillard (@Stbslam) January 2, 2016

With AFP

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