A trip by a President of the Republic to Vichy is never trivial and the announcement of it smacks of the response to Eric Zemmour. Even before arriving in the town of Allier, Emmanuel Macron set the tone for France Bleu Pays-d'Auvergne: "Let us be careful not to manipulate" History. A warning aimed directly at the freshly candidate for the 2022 presidential election, who defended, a few weeks ago, an alleged role of Marshal Pétain in the rescue of the Jews. “Vichy takes us back to a story. This story, we have lived it, it is written by historians "," let us be careful not to manipulate it, to agitate it, to see it again ", specified the Head of State.

This visit to Vichy, in the heavy context, is part of a two-day tour of the president through the Cher and the Allier.

Emmanuel Macron was to speak above all about hydrotherapy, support for heritage and the reception of high-level sport, on the occasion of the inscription of the spa town in the heritage of Unesco.

But after having snubbed more symbolic invitations, such as tributes to Simone Veil or to the 80 parliamentarians who refused full powers to Pétain, the political opportunity was inevitable.

“Pétain regime” rather than “Vichy regime”

It is also an opportunity to close the painful page of “memorial roaming” for the Head of State.

In 2018, Emmanuel Macron sparked a controversy by believing that Marshal Pétain had been "a great soldier" during the Great War, and that it was legitimate to pay tribute to him in this capacity.

Remembrance gestures are planned in this visit to Vichy, and Emmanuel Macron's vocabulary will be carefully studied.

The LR mayor of the city, Frédéric Aguilera, asks in

Le Parisien

"to avoid the use of the expression Vichy regime", so as not to stigmatize the city, where the government of the French state was installed during WWII.

The mayor indicates that he would prefer that we speak of “Pétain's regime”.

Emmanuel Macron will be this Wednesday afternoon only the third President of the Republic, after General de Gaulle in 1959 and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1978, to go to Vichy.

Politics

Visiting Vierzon, Emmanuel Macron questioned about "everyday" problems

Rehabilitation of Pétain by Zemmour: "absurd and false" according to historians

  • Presidential election 2022

  • Vichy

  • Emmanuel Macron

  • Eric Zemmour

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