Laure Dautriche, Ugo Pascolo with AFP 7:05 p.m., November 30, 2021, modified at 7:06 p.m., November 30, 2021

Josephine Baker became immortal on Tuesday when she became the first black woman to enter the Pantheon.

A ceremony chaired by Emmanuel Macron which began by going up rue Soufflot, in the heart of Paris, before he took the floor.  

"I'm back in Paris": Joséphine Baker entered the Pantheon on Tuesday, the first black woman to join the great French figures, a tribute to her "incredible" life as a music hall artist, resistance and anti-racist activist.

Her cenotaph, carried by soldiers from the Air Force, of which she had become a second lieutenant, entered the Pantheon around 6.30 p.m.

The coffin, which does not contain his remains, remained in the family vault, first went up rue Soufflot on a huge red carpet, in front of 8,000 spectators according to the Elysee. 

After the broadcast of her most famous song: "J'ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris", a video montage illustrating the singer's life, from the Parisian scene to her speech alongside Martin Luther King, was screened on the facade of the Pantheon.

#JosephineBaker: start of the tribute ceremony at the Pantheon pic.twitter.com/EhK0gAYOh5

- CNEWS (@CNEWS) November 30, 2021

Photo credit: THOMAS COEX / POOL / AFP

"My mother was not only an artist, but also a committed woman"

The cenotaph (coffin which does not contain the body) then entered the secular necropolis, forty-six years after the artist's death in 1975, to the sound of a work by Pascal Dusapin.

In the nave decorated with giant portraits of Josephine Baker, around a thousand guests had come to pay homage to her.

Nine of her twelve children were also present, moved and happy at this recognition.

His son Brian Bouillon Baker said he saw in this pantheonization a "sign of hope and a message for the younger generations".

It's Josephine Baker.

pic.twitter.com/XjxFYcZMAO

- Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) November 30, 2021

"I would like people to be able to discover that my mother was not only an artist, but also a committed woman who followed her ideas to the end. I hope that her messages of tolerance and openness to others will be heard by the French, "added Marianne Zinzer, one of her daughters.

"His Pantheon was: love, understanding and tolerance".

The cenotaph, covered with the French flag, will remain in the nave all night.

On Wednesday, during a family ceremony, it will be installed in vault 13 of the crypt, where the writer Maurice Genevoix is ​​already located, who entered the Pantheon last year.

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A speech by the president, without political allusion

Emmanuel Macron then gave a speech, to celebrate the one who "had all the courage and all the daring".

"She is quite synthetic of what being French, she who was American (...) She is impressive modernity", he summarized in a video posted on social networks.

Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari has confirmed that Gaîté metro station is becoming Gaîté-Joséphine Baker station.

Joséphine Baker: "You enter our Pantheon because you were born American, basically there is no more French than you" concludes Emmanuel Macron pic.twitter.com/P9RW0S2aof

- CNEWS (@CNEWS) November 30, 2021

Five months before the presidential election, the Elysee ensures that we should not see a political message in this pantheonization. "There is really a very broad consensus" and "not a voice was raised" to challenge it, notes an adviser, presenting the ceremony as a moment of "national unity". "The fact that the President of the Republic has decided to include her in the Pantheon is a strong signal in our country plagued by withdrawal", however, said Elisabeth Moreno, Minister Delegate in charge of Equality between women and men. men, Diversity and Equal opportunities. "More than any other, she embodies our plural France, this France in love with freedom which is not afraid of interbreeding and openness to others".

In opposition, Marine Le Pen said she was "very happy with the entry of Josephine Baker into the Pantheon".

"She said 'France is not my adopted country, it is my country simply'. She shone in her defense of France," added the RN candidate on Sud Radio.

Born on June 3, 1906 in a poor family in Saint-Louis (Missouri) to a black Native American and a father of Spanish origin, Joséphine Baker came to Paris at 19 to try her luck.

She becomes the star of "La Revue Nègre" at the Champs-Élysées theater, reluctantly agreeing to appear topless.

Photo credit: Thomas COEX / POOL / AFP

"If I want to become a star, I must be scandalous," she explains.

"It is France which made me what I am, I will keep an eternal recognition for it", affirms the one who obtained French nationality on November 30, 1937. For her participation in the Resistance, she had received military honors when he died.

The remains of Joséphine Baker will remain in the marine cemetery of Monaco, alongside her last husband and one of her children, not far from Princess Grace who had supported her in the last years of her life.