Rafle du Vel d'Hiv: in Pithiviers, the fight against anti-Semitism at the heart of Macron's speech
French President Emmanuel Macron listens to Holocaust survivor Marcel Sztejnberg and Regine Lipp during the inauguration of the Pithiviers station memorial center after its rehabilitation as a new Holocaust memorial site, in Pithiviers on 17 July 2022. AFP - CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON
Text by: RFI Follow
4 mins
French President Emmanuel Macron marked this Sunday, July 17 the 80ᵉ anniversary of the Rafle du Vel d'Hiv, during which thousands of Jews were deported in 1942, by inaugurating in Pithiviers a new place of memory in the old station of where eight convoys left for Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The Head of State focused his speech against anti-Semitism, judging that France had "
not finished
" with this "
contemporary fight
" and denouncing a "
new form of historical revisionism
".
Advertising
Read more
The Head of State went to the old station of Pithiviers, in the center of France, to inaugurate a new place of memory in this station from which left eight convoys for the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Emmanuel Macron was notably accompanied by the historian Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld and a survivor of the Nazi extermination camps, Ginette Kolinka.
Macron calls for 'giving nothing' to 'creeping' anti-Semitism
In his speech, Emmanuel Macron called on "
republican forces
" to "
redouble their vigilance " in the face of "
even more burning
" and "
creeping
" anti-Semitism than
20 years ago.
From now on, anti-Semitism “
can take on other faces, wrap itself in other words, other caricatures
”, estimated Mr. Macron.
"
But the odious anti-Semitism is there, it lurks, still alive, persists, persists, returns
", he continued, evoking in turn the "
terrorist barbarism
", "
the assassinations and crimes
", the resurgences on “
social networks
” or “
tomb desecrations
”.
“
He interferes in debates on television sets.
It plays on the complacency of certain political forces.
It also thrives around a new form of historical revisionism, even denial
," he insisted, alluding, without naming him, to the far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour who had notably argued that Marshal Pétain had "
saved
" French Jews during the Second World War.
In July 1942, for five days, the Vélodrome d'Hiver was transformed into the first circle of hell.
pic.twitter.com/p3mo3l3MGB
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) July 17, 2022
Controversy around Philippe Pétain
The role played by Marshal Philippe Pétain, head of the Vichy government (1940-1944) who collaborated with the Nazi regime during the Second World War, was also the subject of his speech.
“
Neither Pétain, nor Laval, nor Bousquet, nor Darquier de Pellepoix, none of them wanted to save Jews.
It is a falsification of history to say
so ", also hammered the head of state, considering that "
those who indulge in these lies have the project of destroying the Republic and the unity of the Nation
”.
“
Looking our truth in the face is not weakening France or repenting.
It is to recognize everything so as not to reproduce
it, ”urged Mr. Macron.
In the context of these commemorations, a controversy has ignited social networks.
In 2018, Emmanuel Macron called Philippe Pétain a "
great soldier
"
during the First World War, even if he then "
led disastrous choices
".
The leader of the deputies La France Insoumise Mathilde Panot alluded to it on Twitter on Saturday July 16 at the end of the day.
80 years ago, the collaborationists of the Vichy regime organized the roundup of the #VeldHiv
Do not forget these crimes, today more than ever, with a President of the Republic who honors Pétain and 89 RN deputies!
– Mathilde Panot (@MathildePanot) July 16, 2022
The left-wing politician was accused of instrumentalizing the Holocaust and of not saying in her tweet that the roundup concerned Jews.
The Minister responsible for Transport, Clément Beaune, called on Ms. Panot to withdraw her tweet and to present "
her apologies to France, quickly
".
“
Beyond Shame.
We dare not believe
it, ”he reacted on the same social network.
Relaying this call to withdraw the controversial tweet, Renaissance MP Prisca Thévenot said this Sunday on CNews that LFI had "
succeeded in winning the palm of the abject, the unworthy
".
In a part of his speech which could respond to the remarks of the deputy, Emmanuel Macron explained that "
the mechanics of 1940 came from afar
" and had been nourished, among other things,
by "approximations
".
“
We will never uproot the roots of anti-Semitism if we do not at the same time raise the ferments of education and dialogue
”, further pleaded Mr. Macron, who had visited the old station earlier, transformed in a museum by the Shoah Memorial.
Pithiviers station, “
hub
”
of the Holocaust
The small Pithiviers station has not welcomed travelers since the end of the 1960s and has just been transformed into a museum by the Shoah Memorial.
It was through this station that some of the 13,000 Jews passed through, including 4,115 children, arrested in Paris and its suburbs on July 16, 1942 and the following days, by 9,000 French officials, at the request of the Germans.
8,160 of them, including the elderly and the sick, were taken to the Vélodrome d'Hiver stadium, known as Vel d'Hiv, in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, before being evacuated to camps, notably in Pithiviers.
From Pithiviers station alone, eight convoys then left for the extermination camps, transporting more than 8,000 deportees, making it the second French deportation site after that of Drancy, near Paris.
Only a few dozen adults will survive.
“
This station is the place where the French event becomes European genocide.
(…) It is a place of memory unique in France
,” says Jacques Fredj, director of the Shoah Memorial.
During his speech, Emmanuel Macron described it as the "
hub of the Holocaust
".
(With AFP)
►
To read also: Rachel Jedinak, tireless witness of the Holocaust
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_EN
Second World War
Story