This Saturday, Emmanuel Macron will continue to mark the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of France and must go, this time, to Strasbourg. Several tributes are planned.
A busy schedule. Yet another stage in a long memorial cycle around the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of France and the end of the Second World War, the President of the Republic must go to Strasbourg this Saturday, November 23.
The Head of State is expected at 11:20 a.m. at Place Broglie, to attend a military ceremony where he should pay tribute to the memory of General Leclerc and the men of the Second Armored Division, actors in the liberation of Strasbourg on November 23, 1944.
This division had promised itself, three years earlier, during the Oath of Kufra in Libya, to fight until the French flag flew again in Strasbourg. As a tribute, the latter will once again be hoisted on the spire of the city's famous cathedral.
After a speech at the university, Emmanuel Macron should then visit the former Nazi concentration camp of Natzweiler-Struthof, the only one built on French territory, Alsace being at that time annexed by the Third Reich.
The “Despite us” mentioned
Following this visit, the President of the Republic is expected to speak again, this time at the University Palace in Strasbourg. According to the Élysée, “it will be an opportunity to discuss the resistance of the Alsatians, the liberation of the territory and the always delicate subject of the forcibly incorporated from Alsace-Moselle” into the Wehrmacht.
Indeed, considered German since the annexation, more than 130,000 Alsatians and Mosellans, nicknamed the “Despite us”, were forced to join the German army. 12,000 of them never returned to France.
The “Despite Us” were notably associated with the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane (Haute-Vienne) in 1944, one of the worst massacres of civilians committed by the Nazis in Western Europe. They have thus become a particularly taboo subject in France and the region.
Marc Bloch soon at the Pantheon?
Continuing his program, Emmanuel Macron could also announce the entry into the Pantheon of the academic and resistance fighter Marc Bloch. Professor of medieval history at the University of Strasbourg, he was arrested by the Gestapo on March 8, 1944 and shot three months later.
At the end of his speech, the Head of State should present the Legion of Honor to his son Daniel Bloch.
At the Struthof Memorial, dedicated to the heroes and martyrs of the deportation, Emmanuel Macron will rekindle the flame at the foot of the building, after a “sober and solemn visit” to the camp, where 17,000 people lost their lives.
Finally, the President of the Republic should end his day of tributes with a visit to the Alsace-Moselle Memorial Museum, located in Schirmeck. The latter bears witness to the daily lives of the region's inhabitants between 1870 and 1945. It also pays tribute to the 36,000 Alsatians and Mosellans who died during the war.
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