Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Jean Moulin in Lyon, Monday afternoon, after the traditional Parisian ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe.
After a May 8 commemoration on the almost empty Champs-Elysées, Emmanuel Macron arrived in Lyon on Monday May 8 to visit the former Montluc prison. A few thousand opponents were waiting for him, kept at a safe distance by the police. He then held a speech to salute the memory of Jean Moulin and pay homage to the Resistance. Franceinfo looks back on the highlights of the day.
> DIRECT. Relive as if you were there the commemorations of May 8
1 The Head of State rekindles the flame of the Unknown Soldier on the almost empty Champs-Elysées
As at every celebration of the end of the Second World War, the Head of State went up the Champs-Elysées at the end of the morning, accompanied by the large escort of the Republican Guard, on horseback and motorized. In the presence of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, he laid a wreath and rekindled the flame of the Unknown Soldier.
To avoid the risk of casserolades, recurrent since the adoption of the pension reform, all gatherings have been prohibited around the famous avenue. Strict filters have also been put in place and the public kept at a safe distance from the parade.
2 Emmanuel Macron visits Montluc prison while 3,000 people demonstrate
The President of the Republic has arrived around 3 p.m. at the former prison of Montluc, in Lyon, where Jean Moulin and other resistants were detained, for a tribute to the “French resistance and the victims of Nazi barbarism”. He was accompanied by the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti, the Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye and the Secretary of State for Veterans and Memory Patricia Miralles.
After laying a wreath, he toured the Memorial with a survivor. In particular, he entered the cell where Jean Moulin was detained. At the same time, in Lyon, where all gatherings were prohibited in a large perimeter around the Montluc prison, around 3,000 people demonstrated on the edge of the prohibited zone, according to the prefecture.
3 In his speech in tribute to Jean Moulin, the president chooses his historical and cultural references
The Republic is “necessary, vital and just”, said Emmanuel Macron during a speech from the Montluc Prison Memorial. He associated the name of the former prefect and leader of the Resistance Jean Moulin, who died under torture, with the historian Marc Bloch, who died in deportation: “Moulin and Bloch tell us that the French Republic is by definition neither good nor bad, it is necessary, vital, just”. “Let us have faith in ourselves and in those who will follow us”he added in reference to the duty of memory and transmission.
By way of closing his speech, the President of the Republic took up the words that appear in the epigraph of the film Army of Shadows by Jean-Pierre Melville, released in 1969 and adapted from the novel of the same name by Joseph Kessel. “Bad memories, yet welcome, you are our distant youth”he quoted.