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“Let us be careful not to manipulate history”, declared Emmanuel Macron, during the morning of Wednesday, December 8. Many see it as the Head of State’s response to Eric Zemmour’s words, as well as his planned trip in the afternoon to Vichy, a city with a heavy history.
It is difficult by evoking Vichy (Allier) to slip under the carpet the four dark years of its history. From 1940 to 1944, Vichy became the capital of the Pétain regime, xenophobic and anti-Semitic. Only two Presidents of the Republic have been there since. The last visit was that of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, in December 1978. At no time had he mentioned the Pétain regime. On April 17, 1959, the arrival of General de Gaulle was a special symbol. It was then time for a rally. “We keep on going through history, we are one people, no matter what happened to us”, he said then.
Emmanuel Macron will be, in the afternoon of Wednesday, December 8, the third President of the Republic to go there. “The past plays a crucial role in the current campaign, because it is from our reading of it that we can imagine the France of tomorrow”, Fabrice d’Almeida analysis, historian. The specialist believes that Emmanuel Macron “wants to take his own look at the history of Vichy”.