PARIS, February 19 (Reuters) – The entry into the Pantheon of the resistance fighter of Armenian origin Missak Manouchian was the subject of a contest on Monday between Emmanuel Macron and the leader of the National Rally (RN) Marine Le Pen, who announced his arrival at the ceremony despite the reservations expressed by the president.
In an interview with the daily l’Humanité, the head of state believes that “the far-right forces would be inspired not to be present” at the ceremony planned for Wednesday, “given the nature of Manouchian’s fight.”
“As for the tribute to Robert Badinter from which the elected representatives of the RN were absent”, at the request of the family of the recently deceased former Minister of Justice, “the spirit of decency, the relationship with History should lead to making a choice,” added the French president.
Marine Le Pen has indicated that she would be present at the Pantheon, a Parisian monument where remarkable figures in French history are honored. “Despite the outrageous remarks of the President of the Republic, Marine Le Pen will attend the ceremony of solemn homage of the Nation to Missak Manouchian and her resistance comrades at the Pantheon,” said the RN in a press release.
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All representatives of the parties present in Parliament are invited to the ceremony, which takes on a political color in the run-up to the European elections for which the National Rally is currently in the lead ahead of Emmanuel Macron’s camp.
Missak and Mélinée Manouchian, two resistance fighters against Nazi Germany, and around twenty of their comrades, most of them of foreign origin like them, will enter the Pantheon.
Poet and communist activist, Missak Manouchian is the first foreign resistance fighter to be thus honored, 80 years after his execution by the Nazis, at the age of 37, at the Mont-Valérien fortress, near Paris. (Report by Elizabeth Pineau, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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