Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the writer and fighter Maurice Genevoix, who made his entry into the Pantheon. Author of Those of 14, a masterpiece of literature and immense historical testimony, Maurice Genevoix was able to reconstruct with the greatest fidelity the daily life of eight months of war.
« They are entering here today, finally » the Pantheon, « the temple of the heroes of our Homeland, » the head of state said after an hour-long ceremony. Mobilized at the start of the First World War, then wounded in Verdun, Maurice Genevoix won the Goncourt in 1925 for Raboliot, before publishing in 1949 Those of 14, a flood of stories about the Great War.
Containment required, this celebration took place in small groups and without an audience, such as, in the morning, the commemoration of the 102nd anniversary of the Armistice of 1918 and the centenary of the burial of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe.
Maurice Genevoix’s coffin, covered with a French flag, then entered the Pantheon, carried by the Republican Guard, after having gone up rue Soufflot, to the rhythm of the music of the Republican Guard, followed by two readings by actors, joined in the Pantheon those of the 70 men and 5 women who are buried there.
Maurice Genevoix enters the Pantheon because he is « the one who gave life and flesh to the fighters of the Great War » says Emmanuel Macron. He « wrote with all the tenderness of which a man is capable. He gave a name, a voice, to all those who died as heroes. To those of 14, Maurice Genevoix offered the immortality of words. The Republic, today ‘hui, brings them all together. For eternity. They are there « continues the Head of State before relating the battle of Eparges, in the Meuse. Through Maurice Genevoix, Emmanuel Macron tells « the story of women and men animated by courage, the courage of all our soldiers. On this day, we bring them all together. Here they are arriving by the millions to enter this dome » .
It is also at Eparges, in November 2018, that Emmanuel Macron announced the entry into the Pantheon of the writer, author of Those of 14. After a projection of images on the facade of the Pantheon, the coffin of Maurice Genevoix, who died in 1980, went up rue Soufflot to the nave of the Pantheon, carried by the Republican Guard under the watchful eye of his family and relatives. The actors then read two texts, including an extract from Those of 14 recounting the horror of the trenches, before the Head of State’s speech.
In a speech of about fifteen minutes, Emmanuel Macron wanted to exalt what he called « French courage ». « Lieutenant Maurice Genevoix enters here with all those of 14. The writer Maurice Genevoix enters here with all the figures who inhabit the thousand pages of his masterpiece: a whole people drawn up in the face of trial and torment. They are there. With Maurice Genevoix enters the Pantheon a republican destiny, a French existence « , he declared.
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