The resistant Missak Manouchian will enter the Pantheon with his wife Mélinée Manouchian

Missak Manouchian will enter the Pantheon, confirms an adviser to Emmanuel Macron to France Inter this Saturday. The president must formalize his decision this Sunday, on the occasion of the 83rd anniversary of the Appeal of June 18, indicates Jean-Pierre Sakoun, at the origin of the support committee “Manouchian at the Pantheon”. The pantheonization will take place on February 21, 2024, 80 years after the execution of Missak Manouchian. He will be accompanied by his wife Mélinée, also resistant.

Missak Manouchian at the origin of the “Manouchian group”

The resistance fighter of Armenian origin was arrested on November 16, 1943 and executed on February 21, 1944 with 21 other resistance fighters at Mont-Valérien, in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine). A refugee in France after the Armenian genocide in 1915, Missak Manouchian formed the “Manouchian group”. This group of foreign resistance fighters close to the French Communist Party (PCF) is one of the most active armed movements of the Resistance.

Missak Manouchian’s wife, Mélinée, is buried in the cemetery of Ivry near Paris. She also survived the Armenian genocide, she had joined France with him in 1925 and then the resistance. Just before being executed, her husband wrote her a heartbreaking letter: “Happiness to those who will follow us and taste the sweetness of freedom and peace of tomorrow. I am sure that the French people and all freedom fighters will be able to honor our memory with dignity.”