The ashes of Armenian genocide survivor and hero of the French Resistance, Missak Manouchian, were on Wednesday inducted into the Paris Panthéon – 80 years after he and his comrades were executed during the Nazi occupation.
The solemn ceremony shines a light on the significant role that foreigners played in the liberation of France.
Manouchian’s wife Mélinée – also part of the Resistance – joined her husband in the mausoleum of revered historical figures in line with the wishes of his family.
She survived the war and died a French citizen in 1989.
In a speech in front of their coffins in the monument's nave, French President Emmanuel Macron said Manouchian had wanted to be a poet, but instead became "a soldier in the shadows".
The decision to give him France's highest posthumous honour was taken by Macron in 2023.
The names of 23 of his communist comrades – including Polish, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish and Romanian fighters – will be added to a commemorative plaque inside the Panthéon.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended the ceremony despite suggestions by Macron that the presence of her National Rally party would be disrespectful.
A stateless refugee
Born in 1906 in what was then the Ottoman Empire, Manouchian was an orphan and a survivor of the Armenian genocide of 1915 and 1916.
After arriving in France in 1925 as a stateless refugee with his brother, he led one of the most active armed groups against the Nazis.
The Manouchian group of foreign Resistance fighters was made up of about 60 men and women, including a number of Jews, and was close to the French Communist Party.
They carried out nearly a hundred armed and sabotage operations in the Paris region, including the execution of SS General Julius Ritter, head of the compulsory labour, in September 1943.
"Because these fighters managed to execute a high dignitary of the Reich, they were more hunted than ever," Macron said in his speech at the Panthéon.
"In their footsteps walked inspectors from the police headquarters."
In 1944 the group was put out of action when 23 of its members were rounded up and sentenced to death by a German military court.
The fighters were executed on 21 February, 1944, at Mont Valérien near Paris.
The Vichy regime later tried to discredit the Manouchian group and defuse anger over the executions in an infamous affiche rouge (red poster) that depicted the dead fighters as terrorists.
Never naturalised
A communist, a Christian, and an internationalist, Manouchian’s desire to serve his adopted country in the armed forces saw him make several attempts at French citizenship.
But he died stateless: his naturalisation file, kept in France's National Archives, contains two unfinished applications.
Manouchian had "died for our nation, which never fully embraced him", Macron said.
By entering the Panthéon, Manouchian becomes the first foreign armed Resistance fighter to be awarded the honour.
The Panthéon already honours eight other French Resistance heroes, including the American-born civil rights activist Josephine Baker.
