A month after the death of Hubert Germain, at the age of 101, France on Thursday said goodbye to the last of the Companions of the Liberation, these “knights of freedom” who are “the timeless faces of France”, according to Emmanuel Macron. At 3 p.m., the coffin of the illustrious resistance fighter entered the crypt of the memorial of combatant France, at Mont-Valérien, to rest there definitively in the midst of 16 other combatants of the Second World War.
To the last Companion. pic.twitter.com/KY2j300x4i
– Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) November 11, 2021
“The day has come” when we must “say goodbye” to the last of the Companions of the Liberation, who joins “his fighting brothers and with them, all those who have risen up so that France may live,” declared the head of the state. The burial of Hubert Germain, who died on October 12, gave a historical dimension to the ceremony of the 103rd anniversary of the Armistice of 1918, which became the occasion to celebrate all the French fallen in combat.
“Would we be here without Hubert Germain?” “
The tribute began in the middle of the morning when the coffin left, under a beautiful autumnal sun, the Invalides on an AMX-10 tank bearing the name of the battle of Bir Hakeim. After stopping in front of the statue of General de Gaulle, as Hubert Germain had wished, he went up the Champs-Elysées, accompanied by the Republican Guard, to the Arc de Triomphe where he was deposited next to of the unknown soldier.
“Would we be here without Hubert Germain?” “Asked Emmanuel Macron, listing the names of several of the 1,038 Companions of the Liberation,” illustrious and anonymous “who” followed General de Gaulle in this senseless adventure “by deciding to continue the fight against the Nazis in 1940 “The last companion is no longer (…) But these 1,038 who married France do not disappear,” he added in a speech delivered under the Arc de Triomphe during the commemoration ceremony of the armistice of November 11, 1918.
An “eternal source of inspiration”
Currently visiting France, US Vice President Kamala Harris was on site at the Arc de Triomphe, considering that it was “important” to be present because the United States and France have “a long shared history” , she said on arrival. Emmanuel Macron, wearing a “Bleuet de France” like the ministers and personalities present, announced that the Order of Liberation, created in November 1940, “will live” after the disappearance of the last Companion, while remaining “an eternal source of ‘inspiration for the children of France, always united ”.
The Companions “join our dead and, from Bouvines to Chemin des Dames, from Pathé to Valmy, from Rance to Koufra, they mark their destinies alongside those who carried the spirit of resistance. The love of a free homeland, the refusal of divisions for the honor of France, ”declared the Head of State.
His last will
The ceremony of Mont-Valérien, in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), took place in the greatest sobriety and in silence with the exception of a Marseillaise and the Chant des partisans sung a cappella by the Republican Guard. In the crypt, Emmanuel Macron meditated alone in front of the coffin, on which he placed a cross of Lorraine carved in the wood of the framework of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, as Hubert Germain had wished, who, after the war, had become a Gaullist deputy and minister of Georges Pompidou.
Outside, were the Prime Minister Jean Castex, the mayors of the cities Companions of the Liberation (Nantes, Grenoble, Paris, Vassieux-en-Vercors, and Ile-de-Sein), as well as young people from Suresnes . The candidate for the presidential election of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, had wished to be present at Mont-Valérien, but the Elysée indicated that no parliamentarian or party leader had been invited to this ceremony, which was not was not open to the public.