After the traditional ceremony on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, Emmanuel Macron arrived in Lyon by plane, early Monday afternoon, to pay tribute to Jean Moulin and the Resistance, on the occasion of May 8 , date of the German capitulation. The president visited the old prison of Montluc, where Jean Moulin and other resistance fighters were detained.
The President of the Republic then delivered a memorial speech which retraced the journey of several resistance fighters detained in these places. A large tribute was paid to Jean Moulin, leader of the resistance during the Second World War.
The head of state associated the name of the former prefect and resistance leader who died under torture with the historian Marc Bloch, who died in deportation: “Moulin and Bloch tell us that the French Republic is by definition not neither good nor bad, it is necessary, vital, just”. “Let us have confidence in ourselves and in those who will follow us”, he said in reference to the duty of memory and transmission.
A few minutes earlier, Emmanuel Macron visited several memorial cells. Accompanied by Claude Bloch, 94, the last survivor of Auschwitz living in Lyon and Nazi criminal hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, he went to the cell of former prefect Jean Moulin, the unifier of the Resistance, arrested in Caluire, near Lyon, by the local chief of the Gestapo, Klaus Barbie.
Horribly tortured, he kept silent and died, as a result of the injuries inflicted, on July 8, 1943 at Metz station on the train that was taking him to Germany.
Emmanuel Macron also visited the cell of resistant historian Marc Bloch, shot in 1944, in that of Klaus Barbie who spent a week there in 1983, and in a space dedicated to the 44 children of Izieu, rounded up on order of the “butcher of Lyon”. After passing through Montluc for one night, they were taken to Drancy, from where they were all deported and murdered.
Survivors pleaded for “the Jewish barracks” located in the courtyard of the prison and which has now disappeared to be “rebuilt identically”.
Upon his arrival in Lyon earlier in the afternoon, the President of the Republic laid a wreath and gathered in honor of Jean Moulin and the other resistance fighters then sang La Marseillaise and listened to the chanting of the partisans , a symbol of the suffering and uniqueness of the resistance fighters. The Head of State then greeted the various military and political personalities present.
Not far from there, in the Guillotière district, a gathering of 3,000 people, according to the prefecture, many of whom were equipped with saucepans, began in a good-natured atmosphere around 2 p.m. in front of barriers erected by the police. . The latter then had to use tear gas several times to repel demonstrators trying to enter the prohibited perimeter, AFP journalists noted.
After the president’s speech, a group of demonstrators broke into the town hall of the 3rd arrondissement, located northwest of the Montluc prison. A hooded man would have broken down the door of the building. The police quickly intervened to dislodge the demonstrators.
The CGT had indeed maintained its “call to commemorate the social work of the Resistance” near the prohibited zone, like FO, the PCF, an inter-union education and other organizations. The situation could be tense. The Rhône prefecture has banned all gatherings and traffic for approximately one square kilometer around the prison.
During the visit to Montluc prison, Emmanuel Macron was accompanied by the Keeper of the Seals, Éric Dupond-Moretti, the Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye and the Secretary of State for Veterans and Memory, Patricia Miralles .
This ceremony, at the approach of the 80th anniversary of the arrest and death of Jean Moulin, opens a new memorial cycle which will continue on June 6, 2024 with the commemoration of the Normandy Landings and will end on May 8, 2025 for 80 years of Victory.
In the morning, Emmanuel Macron commemorated the German capitulation on an almost empty Champs-Élysées, after the establishment of a large security perimeter to prevent the opposition from demonstrating. Accompanied by the great escort of the Republican Guard, on horseback and motorized, the Head of State went up the Champs-Élysées, in his car, windows closed in front of only a few dozen onlookers.
The President of the Republic then reviewed the troops and greeted the various political and military leaders present for the ceremony. The establishment of a large security perimeter prevented the opposition from demonstrating. Strict filters have also been put in place and the public kept at a safe distance from the parade.
At 11 a.m., he joined the Arc de Triomphe for the laying of the wreath, the rekindling of the flame and the minute of silence in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier, in the presence of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
Faced with the risk of casserolades, recurrent since the adoption of the pension reform, any demonstration was prohibited near the Champs-Élysées.