Tribute to Jean Moulin: Emmanuel Macron expected in Lyon by several thousand demonstrators

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK / AFP 15:36 pm, May 08, 2023

After a commemoration of May 8, 1945 on the almost empty Champs-Elysées, Emmanuel Macron arrived in Lyon to pay tribute to Jean Moulin and the Resistance. A few thousand opponents were waiting for him, kept at a safe distance by the police. To avoid the risk of "breaks", recurrent on the sidelines of the trips of the head of state since the adoption of the pension reform, the prefecture of the Rhône has banned gatherings and traffic for about one square kilometer around the prison of Montluc, where the ceremony takes place.

A device "a little exaggerated"

The device is "impressive", "a little exaggerated", said Elena, a 20-year-old student. Several groups of demonstrators, 3,000 people according to the prefecture, marched outside the security perimeter, some waving flags in the colors of the CGT or FO, others banging on pots and pans. "We are not saying that the current situation is comparable to 1945, we are simply saying that the government cannot trample on the social heritage of the Resistance," commented Samuel Delor of the CGT of the Rhône. These rallies, "it's a little inappropriate, we must make a kind of parenthesis on May 8," said on BFMTV the deputy RN Marine Le Pen.

A new cycle of remembrance

In the former prison of Montluc, Emmanuel Macron will pay tribute to the "French Resistance and the victims of Nazi barbarism," says the Elysee. He will be accompanied by the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, the Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye and the Secretary of State for Veterans and Memory Patricia Miralles. The ceremony, as we approach the 80th anniversary of the arrest and death of Jean Moulin, opens a new memorial cycle that will continue on June 6, 2024 with the commemoration of the Normandy landings and will end on May 8, 2025 for the 80th anniversary of Victory.

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Prefect from 1937 to 1940, first president of the National Council of the Resistance (CNR), Jean Moulin was arrested on June 21, 1943 in Caluire, near Lyon, by the local head of the Gestapo, Klaus Barbie. Horribly tortured, he remained silent and died of injuries on July 8, 1943 in Metz station on the train that was taking him to Germany. Emmanuel Macron will visit his cell and that of the "butcher of Lyon", Klaus Barbie, who spent a week in Montluc after his arrest in 1983. He was sentenced to life imprisonment four years later.

"Spirit of resistance specific to the French people"

The head of state will exalt through Jean Moulin "this spirit of resistance that is specific to the French people," says the Elysee. "This is what allowed General de Gaulle to become a key player vis-à-vis the Anglo-Saxons" and the France to join the camp of the victors after the mistakes of the collaborationist Vichy regime, stresses the presidency. "All this would not have been possible if Jean Moulin had not gathered around him all the forces of renewal," coming from all political horizons.

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Will the Head of State, who is trying to turn the page on the pension crisis, take the opportunity to launch a new call for "concord"?