The filmmaker has long campaigned for the pantheonization of Missak Manouchian. In his film “the army of crime”, pays homage to him and underlines that immigrants played a major role in the Resistance.
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The Élysée officially announced on Sunday June 17 that Missak Manouchian, figure of the Resistance, survivor of the Armenian genocide, stateless and communist, will enter the Pantheon. The press release states that it will be “accompanied by Mélinee”, his wife of Armenian origin, resistant like him. The director Robert Guédiguian salutes on France Inter a decision of a “capital importance”.
The actions carried out by foreign resistance fighters represent “an anti-racism vaccine” because they willcontrary to all the defamatory remarks on immigration”. In his movie The army of crime, it retraces the course of the communist group FTP-MOI (Francs-tireurs et partisans – immigrant labor), led by Missak Manouchian. If Robert Guédiguian has long campaigned for his pantheonization, it is also to highlight “universal values” carried by the resistant who “wanted to fight with words, texts and poetry”.
“When I was 14, I wanted to look like Missak Manouchian.”
Robert GuediguianFrance Inter
The director confides that the communist resistance fighter was “an extremely strong identifying model” for him. Robert Guédiguian recalls that he is of Armenian origin through his father and that his “mother was German”. He therefore takes one of Missak Manouchian’s poems to heart: “When I die, I proclaim that I have no hatred against the German people.”
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Robert Guédiguian believes that the future pantheonization of Missak Manouchian and his wife Mélinée also plays a “capital importance” vis-à-vis Armenia in the midst of escalating tensions with Azerbaijan. The filmmaker judges the aggression suffered by Armenia on the same level “than that of Ukraine by Russia”. He laments a lack “concrete actions” from European countries, despite their “pious wishes”. If for Robert Gédiguian, “Armenia feels very lonely” in this conflict, the arrival of “Missak Manouchian at the Pantheon will help us in this fight”.