The allegations of sexual abuse against Abbé Pierre have sparked a heated debate in France over the need to remove his name from public places. For many municipalities and associations, the decision seems clear: the name of this priest must disappear from public space.
Concrete actions have already been carried out, such as in Nantes where the Place Abbé Pierre was renamed, or in Nancy, where the plaque commemorating his former home, when he was a member of parliament, was removed. More recently, a statue of Abbé Pierre, located in Norges-la-Ville, was unbolted. For the moment, it rests in a municipal warehouse, relegated among gardening tools.
In total, 150 roads or places are named Abbé-Pierre or Henri Grouès (his birth name), according to an AFP count.
These initiatives are part of a broader movement of reflection that affects town halls as well as schools, and even the Abbé Pierre Foundation, which plans to change its name. It seems a long time ago when, in 2007, Le Figaro headlined: “All of France wants its Abbé-Pierre street”, in homage to the man who had just passed away.
Sawn plate in the vineyard at Farinet
This questioning goes beyond the borders of France. In Switzerland, where two of the seventeen testimonies made public on September 6 also accuse the priest of sexual violence, the reaction was just as swift. Emmaüs Valais has thus decided to remove the portraits of Abbé Pierre, out of respect for the victims. In Saillon, the plaque commemorating the priest’s participation in the Vineyard at Farinet was sawn in two, symbolizing the break with its figure.
For these entities, the name of Abbé Pierre is now inseparable from the accusations against him, and respect for the victims takes precedence over any other consideration. A “very wise” measure, because “the name of Abbé Pierre is sullied and can no longer be proposed as a model”, believes Véronique Fayet, former president of Secours Catholique, in The Cross.
The historian Mathieu da Vinha recalls in the same article that we are talking about facts punishable by law at the time: “despite the action of Abbé Pierre in favor of the poorest and the poorly housed, very clearly, this legal criterion alone leads to his name being removed from the public space.”
>> Read more: Abbé Pierre threatened those who denounced his sexual assaults, unpublished archives reveal And The double life of Abbé Pierre in Geneva
Contextualize instead of renaming
However, removing the name of a public figure is not a common practice in France. “In general, municipalities prefer to contextualize rather than erase,” explains Jean Rieucau, geographer and professor emeritus at the University of Lyon 2, on Wednesday’s RTS program Tout un monde. “Under the plaque, a historical explanation is often added, as in colonial slave cities such as Nantes or Bordeaux.”
However, the case of Abbé Pierre, a contemporary and accused of sexual crimes, is unprecedented, underlines Jean Rieucau, specialist in “odonymy”, the study of street names. This wave of renaming is all the more significant because it affects a religious figure.
But Abbé Pierre was not just a name, he had become a brand, inseparable from the Emmaüs movement.
The Catholic Church, which has lost many street names since the Middle Ages, had managed to return to the public space through charitable figures such as Mother Teresa and Sister Emmanuelle, recalls Jean Rieucau. “But Abbé Pierre was not just a name, he had become a brand, inseparable from the Emmaüs movement.”
The case of Abbé Pierre also raises a broader question: is it really wise to give names of famous people to public places? Today, we increasingly favour the names of historical or contemporary figures, such as Simon Bolivar or Farhat Hached. But this trend raises the question of the limits of such recourse, believes the geographer.
Assign a name to each street
Because since June 1st, all French municipalities have had to name and number each home. The address of more than a million and a half homes, according to La Poste. This obligation previously only applied to towns with more than 2,000 inhabitants. So, no more “places” and other “hamlets” without street numbers to facilitate the work of couriers, postmen, and also emergency services.
In this context, some towns have chosen more modern names, such as the town of Saint-Jean-d’Heurs in Auvergne, which named its streets after artists, such as Johnny Hallyday or Elvis Presley.
The choice of names can sometimes reflect political orientations, as shown by the recent examples of Samuel Paty, the teacher murdered by a Chechen terrorist, and Arnaud Beltrame, the policeman killed while taking the place of a hostage, Jean Rieucau indicates. Samuel Paty has been honored in more than twenty-five places, while Arnaud Beltrame now gives his name to about fifty different places.
However, renaming a place is not a simple symbolic or political decision: it also has a cost. Municipalities and local residents must bear the administrative costs associated with changing addresses and redoing official documents. This is a constraint that is pushing some communities to think twice before permanently removing the name of Abbé Pierre.
Radio topics: Cédric Guigon and Carole Pirker
Web adaptation: vajo with afp
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