Atuona (French Polynesia) (AFP)
Emmanuel Macron announced his support for the Marquesas' candidacy for Unesco World Heritage, to mark the first visit of a President of the Republic to visit this archipelago of French Polynesia celebrated by Paul Gauguin and Jacques Brel.
For this historic occasion, the Marquesans offered Sunday evening (Monday morning in Paris) a rare show to the Head of State with a traditional ceremony of 600 dancers and musicians from the six Marquesan islands, dressed in vegetable outfits made from auti, tapered leaves.
The only man in costume in the middle of Atuona stadium, the main town of Hiva Oa, Emmanuel Macron was greeted by riders in combat gear and by a vibrant Mave Mai, a song recited by a soloist.
"Our part of French identity is wanted and assumed: we are Marquesans, Polynesians, French, and we are proud of it, Mr. President," said the mayor of Hiva Oa, Joëlle Frébault.
She then baptized the head of state with a Marquesan name: "Te Hakaiki Taha'oa", "the great chief who walks and who goes far".
Emmanuel Macron was then acclaimed for having started his speech by greeting, with a few words in Marquesan, each island of the archipelago.
"Our treasure is this nature and this culture", "so I will fight by your side so that we can classify the Marquesas Islands at Unesco", he announced.
They defend the exceptional universal value of the "Marquesas Islands property", which includes nine sites on the main islands of the archipelago, with a "mixed" inscription combining "nature and culture".
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In terms of nature, the Marquesas for example present "an exceptional verticality of cliffs", in particular the island of Ua Pou, with its peaks and pitons, but also many species of fish and dolphins.
In terms of culture, the islands present "an unprecedented monumental ceremonial architecture and habitat", and have many "tiki" (statues) and "paepae", high stone platforms that were the former dwellings of the Marquesans.
Mayor Joëlle Frébault also wanted Matatiki, Marquesan graphic art, to be a World Heritage Site.
"This inscription is an initiative for all of Oceania, because we must tell the world that we are certainly little bits of pebbles in the Pacific, but that we have riches that deserve to be listed as world heritage" , said Sunday the Minister of Culture of the Polynesian government, Heremoana Maamaatuaiahutapu.
"Be proud to be Marquesans, to be Polynesians, to be French," said Emmanuel Macron, concluding, visibly moved, the speech he gave while standing on a traditional double wooden canoe.
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"You offered me in a box made of your crafts, the feathers of each of the birds of your islands, and I have enclosed a part of your songs, your dances and your smiles, and I take them with me against my heart, "he assured residents.
The ceremony was punctuated by the powerful sound of twenty pahu and faatete, Polynesian percussions.
The women have evolved their sumptuous feather-based costumes in the graceful dance of the bird.
Arriving in the Marquesas Islands, Emmanuel Macron visited the graves, under the frangipani trees, of the two great artists: the painter Paul Gauguin, who died in 1903, and the singer Jacques Brel, who died in 1978.
Accompanied by the Minister of Overseas Territories Sébastien Lecornu, he had previously started the day with a ceremony at the monument to the dead of Papeete then by a meeting with the President of French Polynesia, the autonomist Edouard Fritch, and members of the government, consecrated in particular to the Covid-19 crisis.
© 2021 AFP