“Here, 80 years ago, French people killed other French people.” Emmanuel Macron paid an unprecedented tribute to the Vercors maquis on Tuesday to also recall, during this stage of the Liberation commemorations, this “time when the French did not love France”. This is the first time that a President of the Republic has participated in a tribute ceremony in Vassieux-en-Vercors, in Drôme, the scene in July 1944 of the massacre of 73 villagers by the Wehrmacht.
A ceremony that contrasts with tradition
“They ranged from 18 months to 91 years,” said the mayor, Thomas Ottenheimer, in front of the martyrology, a bas-relief on the main square listing the victims, whose names young people then chanted. He advocated “appeasement” and “unity” because these “names forever engraved in stone” show “where hatred leads”. Charles de Gaulle only made a quick stop here in 1963, and Nicolas Sarkozy visited the neighboring village of La Chapelle-en-Vercors in 2009.
The arrival of a head of state in Vassieux, “is the least we can do”, believes Daniel Huillier, 96 years old, national president of the Pionniers du Vercors. He notes that this ceremony contrasts with tradition, which requires that July 21 be commemorated in Vassieux, the date of the final and particularly cruel assault by German troops which killed 840 resistance fighters and civilians in the Vercors.
“They didn’t like de Gaulle and the spirit of resistance”
The choice of April 16 corresponds to the first attack by the French militia. “Let us also remember these French people, their choices and their mistakes,” declared Emmanuel Macron between two icy gusts and a few snowflakes, after saluting the memory of this “Republic of Vercors” which had stood up to the occupier. “French people ready to kill other French people and with them, this certain idea of France. French people consumed by the spirit of defeat, inseparable from hatred of the Republic.”
“Because it was not only a time when the French did not like each other. It was also a time when French people did not like France. Yes, these did not like the France of the Enlightenment or that of 1789 and Year 2. They did not like Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Zola. They did not like de Gaulle and the spirit of resistance,” he added.
For the president, “the Vercors path must be remembered, the dizziness of the decline or the jolt towards the summit”. Those around him assume to “take the story as a whole”. “Remembering also means showing all the gray areas,” explains a relative to AFP. In this small, austere village in the Drôme mountains, rebuilt after being completely destroyed at the end of the Second World War, the head of state had previously visited the necropolis of the resistance. A new stage in its memory cycle to mark the 80th anniversary of the Liberation.
The climax of the commemorations next June
René Heren, 17 years old in the spring of 1944, 97 today, remembers this “time of patriotism”, he who had participated in sabotage operations against the Nazis and in transporting the wounded to the maquis field hospital, in Romans-sur-Isère – “which saved me from the massacre of July 21” in Vassieux. “We didn’t want our country to be invaded,” he slips, his voice tight with emotion.
Emmanuel Macron already went at the beginning of the month to the Glières plateau, another decimated maquis, and to the Izieu house, where Jewish children were rounded up by the Gestapo. The climax of the commemorations will take place in June in Normandy, in memory of the Allied landings. Organizers said Tuesday that Russia would be invited in June, but not its President Vladimir Putin, due to the war in Ukraine.
Formed “as soon as the invasion of the free zone” by the Nazis in November 1942, the Vercors maquis, initially made up of “refractories” in the service of compulsory labor – set up by Vichy for the benefit of the occupier – counted up to 4,000 men, including around fifty Senegalese riflemen and around thirty Polish high school students, a presidential advisor reminded journalists.
With 10,000 German soldiers, the repression operation of July 1944 against this maquis was the largest carried out by the Wehrmacht against the resistance in all of Western Europe. Vassieux is one of the five municipalities elevated to the dignity of Companion of the Liberation with Paris, Nantes, Ile de Sein and Grenoble.