Almost a year to the day after his death, a stele in homage to former environmentalist MEP Michèle Rivasi was erected this Saturday, November 23. The 1m50 high wooden sculpture is installed in front of the town hall of the town where she lived, in Félines-sur-Rimandoule in the South Drôme.
It is almost Michèle Rivasi herself who is at the origin of this initiative from the town hall of Félines-sur-Rimandoule. “It was just after the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011” remembers Mayor Loïc Morel, then first deputy at the time. “Michèle Rivasi came to see her husband Gérard Triaire, then mayor at the time. She suggested that we make a stele to remember the people who sacrificed themselves at Chernobyl and Fukushima, all these people who came very close to the nuclear accidents to put out fires or install concrete shells, so that they are never forgotten”. From year to year, the project is postponed. Until today. “Gérard Triaire died in 2017, then Michèle Rivasi last year. I no longer had the right to procrastinate. And I kill two birds with one stone” explains Loïc Morel. He continues: “I respond to Michèle Rivasi's request by making a stele in memory of these people, but also so that we remember her, the great lady that she was. Whether we agree with her or no, we can’t deny it!”
A chosen Drôme artist
The wood sculpture cost 5.000 eurosco-financed by the community of municipalities. Several candidates responded to the call for projects. It was the Pont-de-Barret artist Laurent Quinkal who was chosen to create this stele. “We really liked her works. He had done research on her and proposed his own representation” believes the mayor.
