Emmanuel Macron pays tribute to Jean Moulin, thousands of demonstrators kept at a distance

French President Emmanuel Macron talks with Claude Bloch, left, who was deported as a child, and Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld. © Laurent Cipriani/Pool via REUTERS

Text by: RFI Follow

3 min

After commemorating May 8, 1945 in Paris, on the almost empty Champs-Élysées, Emmanuel Macron went to Lyon on Monday afternoon. The President of the Republic paid tribute to the resistance fighters of the Second World War and "to the victims of Nazi barbarism". Expected by thousands of demonstrators, a security perimeter had been established.

Advertising

Read more

On the occasion of May 8, the date of the German capitulation, the president visited the former prison of Montluc, where Jean Moulin and other resistance fighters were detained. The Head of State laid a wreath at the Montluc Prison Memorial in which nearly 10,000 people were incarcerated under the Occupation. More than a thousand of them were shot and 6,000 deported. Claude Bloch, 94 years old and the last survivor of Auschwitz living in Lyon, wanted to pass a message to the younger generation. "I tell them: this has happened, this can happen again, it is happening even in some countries of the world."

The head of state also visited the cell of Jean Moulin, arrested in Caluire, near Lyon, by the local head of the Gestapo, Klaus Barbie. Horribly tortured, he remained silent and died of wounds inflicted on 8 July 1943 on the train taking him to Germany.

« 

The French Republic is by definition neither good nor bad. It is necessary, vital, just, "said Emmanuel Macron, saluting the memory of Jean Moulin, "the child of the Republic", "the soldier of the France".

The president highlighted the mission of the former prefect – "unite the right and the left" and recalled, "the essential political role of Jean Moulin" who allowed the unification of the resistance and the emergence of a free France.

This speech sounded like an echo of the current political situation for a president who gives the impression of an isolated leader cut off from the world, with commemorations under high security.

Highly supervised commemorations

Earlier in the morning, the commemorations on the Champs-Élysées were also closely supervised by the police. The Head of State, escorted by the Republican Guard, drove up an almost empty avenue before paying his respects at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, rekindling the flame and shaking a few hands in the official gallery.

In Lyon, all gatherings were forbidden in a large area around Montluc prison. Several hundred meters from the demonstrators, Emmanuel Macron made his visit without hindrance. About 3,000 people demonstrated on the edge of the forbidden zone, according to the prefecture – 5,000 according to the CGT, some banging on pots and pans.

The windows of the door of the town hall of the 3rd arrondissement of Lyon were broken, car windows broken and CRS repeatedly used tear gas. A meeting planned between Grégory Doucet, mayor of Lyon, and the President of the Republic, has also been canceled because of the degradations, but also of schedule constraints, according to the Elysee

« 

We wish there were a little more people "said to the head of state, Thomas Dossus, ecologist senator of the Rhône and the Metropolis of Lyon. "I think civic spirit would benefit from being widely disseminated [...]. Mistakes in tone are never good," Macron replied.

«

The children of Izieu and the millions who died in the Second World War deserve silence and respect. Not indignity. There is a time for everything, "tweeted the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti, present at the ceremony, the president (LR) of the Senate Gérard Larcher judging such gatherings "unacceptable" on this day of memory.

Jean Moulin, the children of Izieu and the millions of dead of the Second World War deserve silence and respect. Not indignity. There is a time for everything.
Karl Marx himself wrote that he who does not know history is condemned to relive it.

— Eric Dupond-Moretti (@E_DupondM) May 8, 2023

► Also listen: Politics, the choice of the week - Emmanuel Macron: 100 days and many pots and pans

(And with AFP

Newsletter Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

Read on on the same topics:

• French politics
• History
• World War II
• France
• Emmanuel Macron