Emmanuel Macron pays tribute to Vercor’s Macchia and remembers the “time when the French didn’t love France”

“Here, eighty years ago, Frenchmen killed other Frenchmen. » On Tuesday, April 16, Emmanuel Macron paid an unprecedented tribute to Vercors Macchia to also remember, at this stage of commemoration of the liberation, “A Time When the French Didn’t Like France”.

This is the first time that the President of the Republic participated in the ceremony of the massacre of sixty-three villages by the Wehrmacht in Vasio-en-Vercour, Drôme, in July 1944.

“They ranged from 18 months to 91 years.”, said the mayor, Thomas Ottenheimer, in front of the Martyology, a list of the dead in the main square of the bas-relief, whose names were chanted by young people. He was supportive“calm down” and “gathering” In memory of these victims, whose “Names Forever Engraved in Stone” reminder “Where Does the Hate Lead”.

“They didn’t like de Gaulle and the spirit of resistance”

Charles de Gaulle only stopped by in 1963, and Nicolas Sarkozy went to the neighboring village of La Chapelle-en-Vercour in 2009. The arrival of the head of state in Vasie, “it’s smaller”Daniel Huillier, national president of Pionniers du Vercors, appreciates.

He points out that this ceremony is contrary to tradition, which requires July 21 to be celebrated in Vasio, the date of the last and particularly brutal attack by German troops, who then killed eight hundred and forty resistance fighters and civilians in Verkor. The date chosen this year, April 16, corresponds to the first attack by the French militia.

“Let us also remember these Frenchmen, their choices and their mistakes”After congratulating the memory of this, Emmanuel Macron said “Republic of Verkor” who stood up to the occupant. “The French are ready to kill other Frenchmen and with them this certain idea of ​​France.” French people consumed by the spirit of defeat, inseparable from the hatred of the republic. »

“Because it wasn’t just a time when the French didn’t love each other. It was also a time when the French did not like France. Yes, they didn’t like Enlightenment France or 1789 and II. They did not like Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Zola. They didn’t like it De Gaulle and the Spirit of Resistance »he added.

for the president “We must remember the way of Verkor, the dizzying descent or the swinging to the top”. His surroundings suggest “Get the story as a whole”. “Remembering also means showing all the gray areas”A person close to Agence France-Presse explains.

In this small village in the Drome Mountains, which was completely destroyed at the end of the Second World War and rebuilt, the head of state had previously visited the necropolis of the resistance. A new phase in the cycle of memory to celebrate 80 years^e Liberation anniversary.