watch the three highlights of the ceremony

Emmanuel Macron praised, on Friday, the “visionary intuition” of this “conciliator”, “this great Frenchman, this honest European man”.

“Jacques Delors helped to draw the face of today’s Europe, line by line.” During the national tribute to Jacques Delors at the Invalides, Friday January 5, Emmanuel Macron greeted “visionary intuition” of “this great Frenchman, this honest European man” Who “just passed the baton to us”.

>> Relive the national tribute to Jacques Delors at the Invalides

Franceinfo looks back on three highlights of the ceremony.

Emmanuel Macron’s eulogy

Jacques Delors left, according to the President of the Republic, “something insurmountable, intangible, a French and European imprint: the possibility of a social democracy of emancipation, the possibility of a united Europe, that of Schengen, of Erasmus, of Maastricht, united by common values”.

During his career, the former minister and MEP worked to “reconcile peoples” And “reconciling Europe with its future”, insisted the head of state. Jacques Delors “invented the Erasmus programs so that our young people know each other, learn to understand, even more than the language of the other, their thoughts”underlined Emmanuel Macron.

“This path – his path – continues”said Emmanuel Macron. “A difficult path, a crest path which moves away from facilities and pretenses, always in imbalance and which holds the nation and Europe, economic strength and social justice, the real and the ideal, together and finally reconciled”.

The European anthem played in front of EU leaders gathered around his coffin

The European anthem,Ode to Joy, was performed by the Republican Guard orchestra. On this occasion, European leaders gathered in front of the coffin of the former President of the Commission to pay him a last tribute.

Two jazz pieces for the end of the ceremony

The coffin of Jacques Delors left the courtyard of the Invalides to two jazz tunes: Body and Soul by Coleman Hawkins (1930) and To a wild rose d‘Edward MacDowell (1896). The family of the deceased, including the former minister and current mayor of Lille Martine Aubry, led the procession.