According to a letter from Emmanuel Macron, a copy of which AFP obtained on Thursday, the head of state has given up on bringing Arthur Rimbaud into the Pantheon, respecting the opposition of the poet's family, despite a public petition in that Sens.
“I don't want to go against the wishes of the family of the deceased.
Arthur Rimbaud's remains will not be moved, ”wrote the Head of State to the family's lawyer in a letter dated Wednesday.
A petition in favor of its pantheonization, signed by ex-ministers of Culture and personalities, had received the support of the current minister Roselyne Bachelot.
Recalling that entry into the Pantheon aims to "honor personalities whose public commitments are identified with the transmission of the values of the Republic", the President of the Republic explains that "given the particular role that the Pantheon plays in the construction of 'a shared republican memory ”, he“ does not want to go against the will expressed by the family of the deceased ”.
A "rebellious spirit" whose "name lives on in our history"
Arthur Rimbaud "will remain buried alongside his family, in the family vault of the cemetery of Charleville-Mézières, his birthplace and last home", adds the Head of State, paying tribute in passing to a "major figure of French literature , unmissable poet and rebellious spirit ”whose“ name lives on in our history ”.
“President Macron respected the wishes of the family.
It is a gesture that she did not expect and that she appreciates.
We are obviously very touched by the humanity with which Emmanuel Macron handled this file.
He was able to override the intellectual Parisian lobbies, ”responded Me Emmanuel Ludot, lawyer for the Rimbaud family.
In September, the poet's great-great-niece, Jacqueline Teissier-Rimbaud, expressed her opposition to Arthur Rimbaud's entry into the Panthéon alongside Paul Verlaine.
A position shared by the association Les Amis de Rimbaud.
If the two poets make their entry into the Pantheon together, “everyone is going to think
gay
, but that's not true.
Rimbaud did not start his life with Verlaine and did not end it with him, these are just a few years of his youth, ”said Jacqueline Teissier-Rimbaud, solicited, specifying that her son and his grandchildren shared his point of view.
"In general, the Friends of Rimbaud are inclined to think that what is proposed does not suit the character of Arthur", indicated its president Alain Tourneux.
“Bringing together Rimbaud and Verlaine in a definitive way,
ad vitam aeternam
, is not possible, it is undoubtedly exaggerated”.
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French Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot had supported a petition in favor of the entry of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine into the Panthéon.
"The fact of bringing these two poets who were lovers, yes, together, to the Pantheon would have a scope that is not only historical or literary, but deeply current", was enthusiastic the minister.
At the origin of this "appeal to the President of the Republic", the only one empowered to decide, is a group of intellectuals, academics and academics passionate about the two poets.
A petition "against" the entry of the two poets also existed.
