Europe 1 with AFP 10:50 a.m., February 10, 2024
A tribute ceremony to the famous ethnologist and publisher Jean Malaurie, who died at the age of 101, will take place Tuesday morning at the Invalides in Paris, we learned from his son Guillaume on Saturday.
This tribute "open to as many people as possible", according to Guillaume Malaurie, will consist of a religious ceremony at the Saint-Louis des Invalides cathedral at 10:30 a.m. followed by a funeral tribute and military honors at 11:45 a.m. in the Court of Honor.
Ashes later buried in Greenland
The funeral tribute will be delivered by the Minister of Higher Education and Research, Sylvie Retailleau. Other personalities are expected, including Albert II of Monaco. A tireless advocate of the "first peoples", particularly of the Far North, Jean Malaurie died in Dieppe at the age of 101.
An explorer, scientist and adventurer, he spent ten years of his life between Greenland and Siberia. He was made famous by a book in defense of the Inuit, "The Last Kings of Thule" by Plon in 1955, where he denounced the destruction of their territory by the American army for the establishment of an air base, and described the way of life of a little-known people.
The book was the first title in a successful collection that still exists, Human Earth. Jean Malaurie directed it until 2016, and was its honorary president until 2021. Jean Malaurie's ashes will later be buried off the coast of Thule in the northwest of Greenland, his son said.