The resistance fighters Missak and Mélinée Manouchian must enter the Pantheon on February 21, eighty years to the day after the execution by the Germans at Mont-Valérien of the Armenian poet and worker who immigrated to France.
Before them, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, already brought three major figures into the Paris necropolis: Simone Veil, Maurice Genevoix and Joséphine Baker. After the death of Robert Badinter, which occurred on February 9, 2024, Mr. Macron announced that the former minister would also enter the Pantheon, in agreement with his family.
What does this symbolic gesture of pantheonization mean and how is the decision made? Explanations.
What is the Pantheon for?
The building, designed by the architect Germain Soufflot in 1764, was initially intended to be a church dedicated to Saint Geneviève, patroness of Paris. In 1791, under the French Revolution, the National Assembly decided to make it a secular temple, named “Pantheon” in reference to the Greek gods, to honor the memory of the new heroes of the homeland – a republican equivalent of the Saint Basilica. -Denis, necropolis of the kings of France.
Throughout the political upheavals of the 19th centurye century, the Pantheon once again became a church or a temple, before returning to its original function in 1885 on the occasion of the funeral of the writer Victor Hugo. A decree then specifies that “the Pantheon has been returned to its original and legal destination. The remains of great men who have earned national recognition will be placed there.”
Who are the “great men” honored?
Logically, the Pantheon first welcomed revolutionaries. Mirabeau was the first to enter, in 1791, but also to leave, a victim of disgrace. Marat, Lepeletier and Dampierre suffered the same fate, unlike the philosophers Voltaire and Rousseau. More than half of the “great men” were pantheonized under the Empire: for the most part, soldiers and dignitaries, little known today.
From IIIe Republic are honored by great political figures (Sadi Carnot, Jean Jaurès, Léon Gambetta), writers (Emile Zola, then André Malraux and Alexandre Dumas under the Ve République), scientists (Marcellin Berthelot, Paul Painlevé, then Pierre and Marie Curie) and, more recently, resistance fighters. The Righteous, who saved Jews during the Occupation, were there collectively honored in 2007.
What about women?
For more than two hundred years, “great men” were exclusively male figures. The only woman in the Pantheon, Sophie Berthelot was buried in 1907 so as not to be separated from her husband, the scientist Marcellin Berthelot.
It was not until 1995 that a woman entered the Pantheon in recognition of her personal work. This is the scientist Marie Curie, discoverer of radioactivity – with her husband Pierre Curie (pantheonized the same year) – and the only scientist to have received two Nobel Prizes in different disciplines, physics and chemistry.
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In 2013, the president of the Center of National Monuments, Philippe Bélaval, recommended, in a report on the modernization of the Pantheon, “pay homage to women of the 20th centurye century embodying a strong message of republican commitment”.
Two years later, in 2015, two resistance fighters, Germaine Tillion and Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, were buried there, at the same time as two resistance fighters, Jean Zay and Pierre Brossolette. In 2018, Simone Veil, former deportee and leading political figure, in turn entered the Pantheon, alongside her husband, Antoine Veil. In 2021, for the first time, the entry ceremony into the Pantheon honored only one woman, without a spouse or fellow fighter: Joséphine Baker. She was also the first artist and the first black woman.
Who decides on pantheonization?
It was the Constituent Assembly which took the first decision to bury a personality in the Pantheon, then the Convention took over in 1794. Napoleon Ier then assumed this right under the Empire, before it returned again to the deputies, from 1885. Since the Ve Republic, it is a prerogative of the President of the Republic. “This is part of the redefinition of its attributions, even if it is not specified in the Constitutionexplains Patrick Garcia, professor at the University of Cergy-Pontoise and researcher at the Institute of History of Present Times. Nothing is codified, the president alone chooses and the decision is implemented by the Ministry of Culture. »
It is still necessary that the person himself or his heirs do not oppose entry into the Pantheon. Thus, General de Gaulle had specified that he did not wish to be buried there and the heirs of Albert Camus did not want the writer to be honored by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009. It is also possible to be pantheonized without be buried in the crypt: this is the case of Aimé Césaire, buried in Fort-de-France (Martinique), to whom a fresco and a plaque were dedicated in the Parisian monument, but also of Germaine Tillion and Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz. This is also the case of Joséphine Baker, whose body remained in the Monaco marine cemetery, where she was buried.
If a simple decree is sufficient to record the transfer of the ashes or the body of the deceased, it takes around two months of preparations to organize the event. Ascent of rue Soufflot, speeches, solemn entry…, the very studied scenography highlights the president as much as the person he wishes to honor.
What are the entry criteria?
The Pantheon is reserved for “great men who deserved national recognition”. But no text details the merits requested. It is not obligatory to be of French nationality, although this is the case for all those currently in the crypt. With Missak Manouchian, of Armenian origin and stateless, the Pantheon will welcome a foreigner for the first time: arriving in France in 1924, he applied for French nationality twice without obtaining it. “We can die for France when we are not French”recalled communist senator Pierre Ouzoulias.
However, there are implicit criteria: we expect an exemplary personality, who embodies the ideals of the Republic (the composer Hector Berlioz or the Marquis de La Fayette were thus dismissed for their monarchical inclination), and whose fight echoes the values of the head of state. The Elysée thus estimated that Missak Manouchian ” port[ait] a part of our greatness »by “his singular bravery, his patriotic impulse surpassing all expectations, his quiet heroism”.