Missak and Mélinée Manouchian, two resistance fighters against Nazi Germany, and around twenty of their comrades, most of whom are of foreign origin like them, enter the Pantheon on Wednesday February 21 during a ceremony chaired by Emmanuel Macron.

Worker, poet, communist activist of Armenian origin born in 1906 in the Ottoman Empire, Missak Manouchian was the first foreign resistance fighter to gain access to the Pantheon. His entry comes 80 years to the day after his execution by the Nazis, at the age of 37, at the Mont-Valérien fortress, near Paris, where a vigil took place Tuesday evening.

He will be accompanied by his wife, Mélinée Manouchian, also a resistance fighter of Armenian origin, who died in 1989. Will also enter in a symbolic way, via the inscription of their names inside the monument, 23 comrades in arms, most of them shot at the same time as him.

Read alsoThe entry of Missak Manouchian into the Pantheon, a tribute to all foreign resistance fighters

With AFP and Reuters

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