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Radio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale
National
Alison Hird

Why a far-right gang once tried to steal the corpse of France's Marshal Pétain

Philippe Pétain France Verdun Georges Pompidou World War I Prison
A postcard featuring French Marshal Philippe Pétain on sale at the souvenir shop of the Ossuary of Douaumont near Verdun, France. © REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo

Fifty years ago today, a group of admirers of French Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Pétain spirited his coffin from the island where he died in prison and tried to bury him alongside fellow World War I heroes in Verdun. They failed.

But the story highlights divisions over the way Pétain is remembered.

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