“Lack of respect”, “unworthy”, “incomprehensible”: the associations of victims of terrorism have not taken off since the abandonment of the Memorial project, announced with great fanfare by Emmanuel Macron and on which they had been working for more than five years.
Without prior consultation, the decision was announced by Matignon to the president and the director of the prefiguration mission of the Museum-Memorial of Terrorism, the historian Henry Rousso and the former interministerial delegate, Élisabeth Pelsez. To the project leaders, who worked to offer a place of homage to all the victims of terrorism in France and abroad, the government justified its disengagement with “budget cuts”.
“It is the expression of total contempt both for the victims and for all the actors of the project who have been working on it for five years,” denounced to AFP Philippe Duperron, president of the 13onze15 association, bringing together the victims. of the attacks of November 13, 2015. “It’s a bit like telling them you're not that important actually », agrees Danièle Klein, member of the office of the French Association of Victims of Terrorism. She deplores that the decision comes a few days before the verdict in the trial for the assassination of Samuel Paty, and a few weeks before the tenth anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
Announced by Emmanuel Macron on September 19, 2018 during the universal commemoration for the victims of attacks, the project, estimated at 95 million euros spread over eight years, was to open its doors in 2027 in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine) .
“Incredible clumsiness”
Associated with the project and regularly asked to contribute, for example in the drafting of specifications, the twelve associations of victims of terrorism have never been notified by the ministries. A lack of communication which constitutes “incredible clumsiness” according to Danièle Klein, recalling that the victims of attacks are “extremely courageous people but who always remain fragile”.
“The abandonment of this beautiful project desired by the President of the Republic and started 6 years ago is incomprehensible and constitutes a blatant lack of respect for all victims of terrorism and their loved ones”, reacted on X François Molins , Paris prosecutor (2011-2018) during the wave of attacks.
As an alternative, the government has suggested erecting the national memorial in the memorial garden designed by Paris City Hall for the victims of the November 13 attacks.
“That we can confuse this project with the memorial garden (…) is really to have understood absolutely nothing,” says Philippe Duperron, father of a victim at the Bataclan. Because the memorial museum “is precisely to distinguish between an attack or a series of attacks and all the other victims,” summarizes Henry Rousso, while many victims sometimes feel forgotten or erased by those of terrorist attacks. magnitude.
It was carried out in partnership with other museums and memorials dedicated to terrorism, including those of September 11 in New York and the Utoya massacre in Norway.
Place of transmission
Proposed by the State and now abandoned, the site, a former open-air school built in 1934 on Mont-Valérien, had attracted “support” from associations, who saw it as a symbol while the school is regularly targeted by terrorists.
“This museum was for us a way of being proactive in society, of offering our experience as an educational material,” explains Danièle Klein. “It is not only memorial work that is being done, it is also work on the history of our society,” adds Élisabeth Pelsez, for whom abandoning this project is “depriving oneself (r) of a place of knowledge that is multifaceted.”
More than 2,000 objects have already been brought together to constitute the museum's collections, mainly court documents and donations from victims of attacks, in particular clothing worn by child victims in Nice or by hostages. Donations to the State carry an “emotional and symbolic charge”, notes Élisabeth Pelsez. “For the victims, it is a long, very courageous personal process,” explains the former ministerial delegate for Victim Assistance.
“This museum allows us to repair, too, by explaining who we are, our history, what we do” summarizes Danièle Klein. “And there we are told : that ultimately doesn't interest us ».
