Manon Fossat
modified to
09:00, June 03, 2022
On the second day of the celebrations around the jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, a mass must be held at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, without the latter. Invited to Europe Matin on Friday, our presenter and specialist in royal families, Stéphane Bern, felt that she does not want to give the impression that she is no longer able to exercise her sovereign functions.
On the first day of her platinum jubilee to celebrate her 70 years of reign, Queen Elizabeth appeared Thursday to the cheers of tens of thousands of people massed near Buckingham Palace. The British royal family is meeting this Friday for a mass celebrating the 70th anniversary of its historic reign, but the 96-year-old sovereign will not participate, apparently tired by the first day of the festivities. Guest of Dimitri Pavlenko and live from London, Europe 1 presenter Stéphane Bern, specialist in royal families, estimated that the Queen’s health report is not a state secret, but that she does not want not “showing oneself in a weak position”.
“The embodiment of the British nation”
“Queen Elizabeth embodies the British nation and she does not want to give the impression that she is no longer able to exercise her sovereign functions”, he posed. “She is the one who signs the laws, she is the one in whose name we appoint the judges, we also dispense justice in her name. And she can’t stand that we can see her in a situation of weakness, or it appeared quite fragile on Thursday,” said Stéphane Bern.
For the host, justifying a “certain discomfort” felt on the first day of the jubilee, the royal family was indeed looking for an explanation “to say that they could not attend for an hour and a half a religious service celebrated in Paul’s Cathedral this Friday morning.
Longevity record for Elizabeth II
Stéphane Bern also recalled that Queen Elizabeth II holds the record for longevity. “This jubilee is a unique opportunity for the British to celebrate their queen but also to celebrate history. There have been others, such as that of Queen Victoria who celebrated her 50th birthday and then 60 years of reign. And then George V who had celebrated his 25th year of reign. But there was no sovereign with such a long lifespan”, he detailed. “In a few days she will become the longest reigning sovereign in the history of the world, and in two years she will exceed the record of our sovereign Louis XIV.”