The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is set to defy requests to stay away from a national ceremony to honour a second world war resistance hero.
A spokesperson for Le Pen described President Emmanuel Macron’s suggestion she should not attend the event on Wednesday as “outrageous”.
Missak Manouchian will enter the Panthéon in Paris, France’s mausoleum of revered historical figures, the country’s highest posthumous honour.
In an interview with the communist newspaper L’Humanité, Macron said he was “personally against” representatives from the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) attending the ceremony.
Last week, RN leaders accepted a request by the family of former minister and laywer Robert Badinter not to attend a national event honouring the man who abolished the death penalty in France.
“As for Robert Badinter’s homage, for which RN MPs were absent, the spirit of decency and consideration for history should oblige them to make a choice. Far-right groups would be well advised not to be present, given the nature of Manouchian’s struggle,” Macron told the paper.
He did, however, say the RN was “no longer openly antisemitic and negationist”, as its predecessor the Front National (FN) had “resolutely” been.
after newsletter promotion
In response, Le Pen confirmed she would be present at the Manouchian ceremony. “Despite the outrageous suggestion from the president, Marine Le Pen will attend the solemn ceremony marking the nation’s homage,” her spokesperson said. Other members of the RN are also expected to attend.
Manouchian, born in 1906 in what is now Armenia, fled the Armenian genocide when he was nine and came to France. He was a turner at the Citroën factory in Paris and joined the Communist party in 1934. After war broke out, he led a small group of foreign resistance fighters to defy the Nazi forces occupying France. The group, including members from Spain, Hungary, Poland, Italy, Romania and Armenia, carried out attacks and sabotage raids on German units.
In 1943, 23 members of the group, including Manouchian, were caught and sentenced to death by a German military court. They were executed by firing squad on 21 February 1944. A poster issued by the collaborationist Vichy government of Marshal Pétain justified the executions by describing the resistance fighters as “foreigners, communists and Jews”.
Manouchian will be interred at the Panthéon with his wife Mélinée, who escaped the 1944 round-up, survived the war and died in 1989.
Jean-Pierre Sakoun, the president of the committee responsible for Manouchian’s entry to the Panthéon, said the RN’s attendance was “not one of the greatest pleasures”, but as a parliamentary party the RN had the right to be there.
“There is only one question to ask Ms Le Pen: ‘Are you [the RN] in any way the heirs of a party [the FN] founded by Nazis and collaborationists?’ The answer cannot be maybe. It is yes or no.”
