On November 11, 1918, at precisely 5:15 a.m., France and Germany signed the armistice which put an end to the horrors of the First World War. The treaty, ratified in the lounge car of Marshal Foch, in Rethondes, in the forest of Compiègne, marks the victory of the Allies and the capitulation of Germany. The official ceasefire began at 11 a.m., but the end of the conflict was not definitively established until the signing of the peace treaties in Versailles, on June 28, 1919.
A national day of “commemoration of victory and peace”
Nevertheless, it is the date of November 11 which is chosen to commemorate the end of the butchery of this war which left more than 18.6 million dead, disabled and mutilated, including 8 million civilians: November 8, 1920, a law was passed so that a tribute be paid that day to the “unknown soldier who died on the field of honor”, buried a few months later under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
For this day to be celebrated, however, we will have to wait for a new law, that of November 10, 1921, brought by a former Lot-et-Garonnais elected official, a certain Pierre Marraud, as our colleague Julien Pellicier recalled in an article published on our website on November 11, 2021.
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Born on January 8, 1861 in Port-Sainte-Marie, where his father was a justice of the peace, and died in Paris on March 23, 1958, at the age of 97, the last to join the high administration after having studied law. And became prefect of Aude in 1900, before joining the Ministry of Finance.
Several times minister
Elected on January 11, 1920 for the first time to the Senate, where he sat within the group of the democratic, radical and radical-socialist left, Portais was entrusted with the Ministry of the Interior by Aristide Briand on January 16, 1921. A function that he will exercise for an entire year, give or take a day. A feat under the Third Republic, renowned for its instability. This was enough for him to pass the famous law establishing the celebration of the anniversary of the armistice of November 11, 1918: this national day of “commemoration of victory and peace” will henceforth be a public holiday.
At the origin of free secondary education
General councilor of Beauville (47), president of the general council of Lot-et-Garonne and senator, Pierre Marraud will also subsequently be Minister of Public Education and Fine Arts four times. It was he who passed the finance law on free secondary education on April 16, 1930. Unhappy candidate of the left in the second round of the 1931 presidential election against Paul Doumer, he ended his brilliant political career in 1933, after being beaten in the Senate by André Fallières, the son of another illustrious Lot -et-Garonnais: the former President of the Republic Armand Fallières.
Could November 11 no longer be a public holiday?
Since a law of February 2012, it is no longer only the dead of the First World War who are honored on November 11, but “all those who died for France”, both old and current conflicts. But will this day remain a public holiday? In order to achieve around 3 billion euros in savings, Michel Barnier's government recently opened the debate on the elimination of a second public holiday, after Pentecost Monday, to finance national solidarity. Following the heatwave of 2003 which caused more than 15,000 deaths in France, the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin had in fact decided to remove the public holiday from this day to transform it into a “day of solidarity in favor of autonomy”. elderly or disabled people. More than a hundred years after the armistice of the Great War and the Marraud law, while all the veterans of 1914-1918 have now died, the public holiday of November 11 desired in its time by the former elected official lot-et could Garonnais be threatened? To be continued.
