In front of only about thirty people, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the national tribute ceremony to former resistance member Daniel Cordier, who died at the age of 100, took place on Thursday, November 26, November 20.
In the courtyard of the Hôtel des Invalides, Emmanuel Macron hailed the memory of "a free Frenchman, in love with a France without chains".
"The life of Daniel Cordier is an adventure novel", declared the president about the one who was the secretary of Jean Moulin, leader of the resistance, died in 1943, after being tortured by the Gestapo.
At 20 years old, in 1940, Daniel Cordier "was one of the resistance fighters from the very beginning, of those who remained standing when everything collapsed, ready to make any sacrifices so that France remained France", recalled the leader of the 'State in front of the coffin of the deceased, draped with a tricolor.
National tribute to Daniel Cordier: "the head of state particularly moved"
02:43
"A luminous lightness
Emmanuel Macron recalled the course and underlined the "luminous lightness" and the "smile of an eternal child" of Daniel Cordier, gallery owner passionate about art who has often testified to his experience as a resistance fighter, in particular recounted in his memoirs entitled "Alias Caracalla "(Ed. Folio).
At the age of 19, Daniel Cordier was one of the first to join the Free French Forces in London, where General de Gaulle was exiled.
He had been made a companion of the Liberation in 1944.
The last one still alive, Hubert Germain, aged 100, was present at the ceremony.
At the end of his 15-minute speech, Emmanuel Macron addressed the centenarian, in a wheelchair and wearing the green beret of the Foreign Legion: "I'm counting on you. And, you know, you'll never be alone" .
A cellar has already been reserved for Hubert Germain as the last companion at Mont-Valérien, in the Hauts-de-Seine, a high place of the Resistance where more than a thousand hostages and resistance fighters were executed.
He will join the 16 dead for France from 1939 to 1945 who represent at the same time all the forms of engagement and the various places of combat of France.
They are 11 soldiers (including two skirmishers from North Africa, two skirmishers from Black Africa and three members of the Free French Forces) and five resistance fighters (including one FFI from Vercors and one from the Indochinese resistance).
Daniel Cordier will be buried on Friday at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
Some 1,038 people, including six women, were awarded the title of Companion of the Liberation, as well as 18 military units and five French municipalities: Nantes, Grenoble, Paris, the martyr village of Vassieux-en-Vercors and the Île de Sein.
National tribute to Daniel Cordier: farewell ceremony in a small committee at the Invalides
04:49
With Reuters and AFP
The summary of the week
France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 application
google-play-badge_FR