the Secretary of State for Veterans denounces the presence of the RN which “feasts with those nostalgic for Nazism”

“Can we go and celebrate with those nostalgic for Nazism and witness the entry of one of their victims into the Pantheon?”, asks France Bleu Hérault on Wednesday February 21 Patricia Mirallès, Secretary of State for Veterans and Memory, a few hours before the pantheonization of Missak Manouchian, during a ceremony in which several representatives of the National Rally will participate. Despite the disapproval of the committee supporting the pantheonization of Missak Manouchian, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella will in fact be present this Wednesday evening. Patricia Mirallès says “hear” criticisms coming from “families of those shot and victims of Nazi barbarity”. “Respect means listening to families”affirms the Secretary of State who believes that we “can’t go and celebrate with people nostalgic for Nazism.”

Patricia Mirallès explains that the communist resistance fighter of Armenian origin will enter the Pantheon with 23 of his fellow travelers, whose names will be engraved in gold letters at the entrance to the vault where the bodies of Missak Manouchian and his marries Mélinee. Among these names will be that of Olga Bancic, a resistance fighter from the FTP-MOI in the Paris region who was “not shot, but decapitated”. The Secretary of State insists on the story of Olga Bancic in order to show that “women fighters and resistance fighters were also courageous” only men.

For the Secretary of State for Veterans Affairs, this “entrance to the Pantheon” will be “a meeting between the Nation and the foreign immigrants who had married France”. She sees a “time of national consensus”. Patricia Mirallès judge “indispensable to be able to look history in the face, to encounter it without reinventing it in the dark hours that are ours.” “In France, when we tell History, we tell it with the immigrants, the foreigners, the Jews who gave their lives and who married our country”she emphasizes.

Patricia Mirallès also returns to the vigil organized Tuesday evening at Mont-Valérien, in tribute to Missak Manouchian and her French and foreign companions, at the scene of their shooting 80 years earlier. The Secretary of State specifies that “nearly 600 people” were present in what was, according to her, “a pretty strong moment”.