Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Radio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale
National
Alison Hird

Macron revives plans to build memorial for victims of terrorism

Place de la Republique, Paris, after the November 13 attacks, 2015. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

France’s plans to build a national memorial for victims of terrorism – originally shelved due to budget cuts – are back on track, President Emmanuel Macron has promised. The project’s proposed location on a World War II memorial site, however, remains a point of contention.

France has suffered more deadly terror attacks since 2012 than any other EU country.

In 2018, three years after the deadly November 2015 attacks that claimed 130 lives, Macron vowed to honour victims by creating a museum to put their stories "at the heart of our memories".

The €95 million memorial, set to open in Suresnes, west of Paris, was designed as a tribute to all victims of terrorism, in France and abroad.

The museum’s opening had been planned for 2027, with €10 million already spent on its development. But in December, it was abruptly axed "for financial reasons" amidst budget cuts under Michel Barnier’s government.

Barnier was ousted shortly after in a vote of no confidence.

Victims' associations denounced the decision as “brutal” and “incomprehensible”.

On Tuesday, as France commemorated the attacks on satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo that claimed 12 lives, the French president took back control of his project.

He reassured the MMT memorial committee of his “investment” and support to see the memorial through “as it was initially conceived”, the committee's president Henry Russo wrote on social media.

“It’s good news for all the victims of terrorism... to see the state keep its word,” Russo added.

Place of remembrance

The memorial aims to pay homage to all victims of terrorism and is being designed in partnership with others museums including the 11 September memorial in New York and the one dedicated to victims of the Utoya massacre in Norway.

It will include thousands of exhibits – family souvenirs such as yarmulkes worn by children killed in the 2012 attack on a Jewish school; tables and chairs from “La Belle Equipe” bar pitted with bullet holes received during the 13 November Paris attacks; clothes worn by victims of the 2016 Nice attacks.

The memorial will also retrace the history of terrorism since the 1970s and the emergence of a new type of international terrorism, with a retrospective going back to the 19th century, states the MMT website.

“The museum memorial will be both a place of remembrance, recognition and justice for all victims of terrorism,” François Molins, public prosecutor during the 2015 terror attacks, told FranceInfo on Tuesday.

“It will also be a place of culture, reflexion and exchange around the values of being good citizens,” he added.

Remembering France's Oradour-sur-Glane massacre, one heirloom at a time

Controversial location

The memorial’s location, however, is proving controversial.

Mont-Valerien houses a memorial marking the place where the German army executed members of the French Resistance and prisoners during WWII.

The Cross of Lorraine and the flame of the Resistance mark the entrance to the Mont-Valerien, a memorial for the French who fought against the Nazis and those who were killed by the occupying forces. Located in Suresnes, west of Paris, France. REUTERS - POOL

Last year, groups memorialising the Shoah and the Resistance voiced opposition to the location, fearing that remembrance of terrorism risked erasing that of World War II.

According to FranceInfo, Culture Minister Rachida Dati is lukewarm about the project.

Her entourage said there was "consensus in calling for the project to be reoriented".

But for Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc, head of the French association for victims of terrorism, the decision to go ahead with the project at Mont-Valerien marks the “restart of considerable hope”.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.