“The ecological mayor of Lyon cancels a trip for high school students to Auschwitz so that they don’t take the plane. ” L’information has been taken many times on social networks since Monday, following several exchanges between elected officials during the council of the metropolis of Lyon.
In addition, Grégory Doucet, by his environmental convictions and his aversion to the plane, would have decided to cancel this trip of memory while the Rhône department maintains the two dates next March bound for this work and concentration camp. from Poland? Explanations.
FAKE OFF
First, even if it is Lyon, this story does not concern the city of Lyon and its mayor, but the Grand Lyon metropolis, whose president is Bruno Bernard, also an environmentalist. These are not high school students either, but middle school students.
The rumor was actually launched by Christophe Guilloteau, LR president of the Rhône department, during his wishes to the press on January 13. He had announced that there would be no trip to Poland organized by the metropolis because of environmental activism against air travel.
Elected representatives from several opposition groups then asked, during the metropolitan council on Monday, for explanations from the majority who had justified giving up sending students to Auschwitz-Birkenau for security reasons, the camp being too close to the fighting in Ukraine. , especially in Lviv, which has been at war for nearly a year.
In Progress, Christophe Guilloteau, LR president of the Rhône department, added: “If it were dangerous, do you think there would be as many daily flights in Poland? The Rhône department has confirmed its intention to send 120 children to visit this concentration camp in March. Other departments have already sent college students in recent months.
Fulfilling the duty of memory in other places
To respond to “this heinous and false accusation”, the president of the metropolis Bruno Bernard, wrote a Twitter thread. He reiterated that the decision was only motivated by the fear of sending pupils and teachers “250 km from the Ukrainian border”. He explains that a collective work with “educational teams and parents of students” has been carried out so that these students can still “fulfill the duty of memory” in France, “in the first place”.
In order to be made aware of the Holocaust, the college students went to the Natzweiler-Struthof camp in Alsace. This new arrangement has thus enabled the metropolis to double the number of middle school students taking part in the trip.
And on the controversy of the plane, the president of the Lyon metropolis denounces a “fake news” by demonstrating that this means of transport has not been excluded by the metropolis, in particular when it has had to be used “for humanitarian reasons”.