Solene Leroux
modified to
09:07, July 18, 2022
Olivier Faure was the guest of Europe Matin on Monday. He reacted to the controversial remarks of Mathilde Panot on Sunday, on the occasion of the commemorations on the Vel ‘d’Hiv roundup.
Can we say everything on social networks? Can you say everything when you’re a deputy? This is the question asked this Monday morning following the controversial tweet of the leader LFI in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot. On the social network, she wrote on Sunday, on the occasion of the commemorations of the Vel ‘d’Hiv roundup, that we should “not forget these crimes, today more than ever, with a President of the Republic which honors Pétain and 89 RN deputies”.
80 years ago, the collaborationists of the Vichy regime organized the roundup of #Vel d’Hiv
Do not forget these crimes, today more than ever, with a President of the Republic who honors Pétain and 89 RN deputies!— Mathilde Panot (@MathildePanot) July 16, 2022
Words immediately decried by many French political figures. Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party, allied with rebellious France in the Nupes coalition, reacted to Thierry Dagiral’s microphone on Europe 1. “These events are a wound in our history. He supposes that that day, the day we commemorate this anniversary, we refrain from any formula that can lead to controversy”.
“Two” Petain
He thus regrets that these words were spoken that day, “even if I see that we are hounding Mathilde Panot, and that we forget that on the same day, there is a deputy of the relative majority who for his part considered that there were two Pétain, and that there was a Pétain who must continue to be honored, echoing the words of the Head of State in 2018”. And to recall that that year, “President Macron had explained that it was necessary to continue to honor the great soldier who was, I dare not say, Marshal Pétain, since he was struck with indignity and that he no longer has any title to assert today”.
However, the deputy Nupes of Seine-et-Marne wants to avoid “any form of confusion”: “I fight with the Nupes, precisely to avoid this kind of great permanent amalgam between each other.” Thus, he does not want “to suggest that Pétain and Macron are the same thing”, he said. “When confusion exists everywhere, our duty is to make sure there is less confusion.”