Friday June 18 at 11 a.m., Emmanuel Macron and Hubert Germain will meet at Mont Valérien, in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), to commemorate the call of General de Gaulle.
The live images on the news channels, in the crypt of the Memorial of the Fighting France, will show them face to face: a 43-year-old president who has not known war or even military service;
in front of him, seated in an armchair, a veteran of almost 101 years, veteran of Bir-Hakeim and last companion of the Liberation still alive.
This will be their eighth meeting, possibly the last. As Hubert Germain slips it in the form of a joke to his visitors, in the small room he occupies at the Invalides: "Le 19, adieu!" ", Or again:" I am on the starting line. “For several months, the former colossus of 1.90 m has not left his medical bed. “All his forces are stretched towards this June 18. He wants to be present at all costs, ”notes General Christian Baptiste, Chancellor of the Order of the Liberation, who visits him three times a week at the end of the afternoon. “He is literally carried by his responsibility towards order, General de Gaulle and the 1,037 companions who died before him. He won't let go. It is a monument of will, all his life testifies to it. "
His friend Marc Leroy, a 38-year-old seminarian with whom he wrote a book of memories, “Hope for France” (Éditions les Belles Lettres, 2020), smiles, thinking of the tenacity of his “friend”: “I guarantee you that he will be there on June 18, in his chair, with his decorations.
For him, it is an ultimate mission to accomplish.
"
"He compares the companions to flames"
This Friday, the old man will try to give a speech of nearly five minutes, prepared for three months with General Baptiste. Even if the voice of the latter must take over, Germain will not leave to anyone the care of planting his intense eyes, where the ardor of his youth can still be guessed, in those of the Head of State. What is he looking for in presidential wards? The assurance that after his death, the spirit which animated him, him and the other patriots of the first hour, will not be extinguished. “He compares the companions to flames, reports Marc Leroy. When he is no longer there, he wants the embers to be kept alive, always fiery, to inspire the youth of France and those who will have to defend it. His obsession is that order survives him. "
To guarantee this future, he relies heavily on Macron, born fifty-seven years after him but in whom he has found a patient, attentive and… admiring ear.
"It's more than admiration," assures Bruno Roger-Petit, the
memory
adviser to
the Head of State.
The president is fascinated by the crazy adventure of these heroes who take all the risks and forge a destiny for themselves in exceptional circumstances.
"
"I'm going to war"
And what fate! Son of a general, Hubert Germain decided to drop everything in mid-June 1940, when France had just surrendered. In the midst of the naval school entrance exam, he meditates for a few minutes, gets up and hands his blank copy to the examiner, dumbfounded: "But you have four hours!" "It's useless, I'm going, I'm going to war," retorts the impetuous 19-year-old. From Bordeaux where he resides, he reaches Saint-Jean-de-Luz and embarks on a ship loaded with Polish troops, bound for England. When he landed in Liverpool on the 27th, he heard for the first time about the call of this unknown general, who would become the compass of his life.
"What characterizes the companions, like de Gaulle, is this incredible faculty of having seized the moment of June 1940 and of making a destiny of it, for the country and for themselves", said to the "Parisian" - " Today in France »Emmanuel Macron.
“Hubert Germain is authentically French in that he is an eternal lover of freedom and rebellion against injustice.
"
Hubert Germain has met General de Gaulle several times, as here in Tunis (Tunisia) in June 1943. Museum of the Order of the Liberation
In the helicopter that took him, with his wife Brigitte, to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises on November 9 for the 50th anniversary of the death of his illustrious predecessor, he had taken out the little book that Hubert Germain had just published. . Less than a hundred pages to tell the story of a turbulent high school student who risked his life to liberate France and restore some of the honor lost in the Collaboration. An inspiring read before going to salute the memory of the general.
Since his election to the presidency, the figure of the hero returns very regularly - too much, say the detractors - in his speeches.
Particularly when he presides over the national funerals of fallen soldiers.
This inclination, he even theorized it in an interview with the regional press in November 2018: “In our societies, we need to assimilate ourselves to people who do extraordinary things.
"
Macron: "He is from this school which places fraternity above everything"
To mark the 80th anniversary of the June 18 Appeal, Hubert Germain accompanied the president on his visit to the Museum of the Order of the Liberation, on June 18, 2018, in Paris.
AFP / Yoan Valat
A palace advisor deciphers: “The hero allows identification. He participates in the construction of a republican memory that everyone can share. These figures are needed today, where imaginaries tend to pit against each other. In other words, it is by summoning "positive heroes", dead or alive, that France will be able to drive out its separatist demons. “Free French” during the war, Germain also embodied, in the eyes of the Head of State, the third pillar of the Republican motto. "He is from this school which places fraternity above all,
"
insists Emmanuel Macron to our newspaper.
Eleven days after the presidential tribute to Colombey, Daniel Cordier, Jean Moulin's former secretary, bowed out at the age of 100. Hubert Germain, four days his senior, thus became the last of the companions. And the new Chancellor of Honor of the Order of the Liberation, appointed by presidential decree.
On November 26, just after the national tribute in the courtyard of the Invalides, Emmanuel Macron went to find him, at the foot of the equestrian armor of François I, one of the nails of the Army Museum.
For an hour and a quarter, the two men discussed the future of the order.
"Hubert Germain told him of his fear that he would wither away once all the companions had disappeared," reports one of the rare witnesses.
Macron assured him that it was out of the question, that he was extremely attached to this memory.
"" Those who put their lives on the line for the country, he can listen to them for hours without stopping, assures a close friend of the president.
Hubert Germain felt he was not acting.
Between them, there is respect and trust.
"
"An example for all of us"
Perhaps because they had seen each other seven times already, the conversation also took a less formal turn. Like that advice from grandfather slipped to much younger than him: “Mr. President, when you have to make a decision, take the time to think it over. But once you've decided, never give in again! Word of an officer! This is because the former lieutenant who became mayor of a small town in Essonne then deputy for Paris, has character. Uncompromising, sometimes rough as many have experienced. "I would not necessarily have liked to be head of a PTT administration when he was minister (Editor's note:
from 1972 to 1974
), ”General Baptiste smiles affectionately.
“He is very demanding, but this goes hand in hand with his immense moral and intellectual rectitude.
Having said that, he's a charming man, we laugh a lot… ”
Another general visits him regularly: Thierry Burkhard, Chief of Staff of the Army since July 2019. The day he took up his post, he went to greet the former legionnaire of the 13th DBLE, whom he took over. he himself ordered.
The current passed immediately with this "luminous personality": "We are very lucky that a man of his caliber is the last representative of the Order of the Liberation.
This eternal fighter in the service of France is an example for all of us.
What strikes me the most is his modesty, his detachment ... "
Hubert Germain (here in September 2017) likes to transmit. He often accompanied children to the Museum of the Order of the Liberation. Museum of the Order of the Liberation / Valéry Corbin
At the institution of Les Invalides, which Louis XIV had erected 350 years ago to accommodate servicemen who are mutilated or at the end of their life, this old soldier is in his place. In her bedroom, upstairs, the photos hanging on the wall, in the middle of the drawings of her great-grandchildren, tell her thousand lives. The three children he had with his wife Simone, who left long before him; the last Council of Ministers chaired by Georges Pompidou; a portrait taken in 1942 in El Alamein (Egypt) of his fighting brother, Joseph de Ferrières. Two years later at Monte Cassino (Italy), the brain of this friend will sink on his pants after a German salvo. A cross on the bedside table reminds us that God is never far in the life of this Freemason. "Death is not taboo, he frequented it a lot, assures Marc Leroy,former executive who is preparing to become a priest. I feel he is very peaceful. "
He took care of the details of his future national funeral
Calm, he is also on the future of the order, when he will have joined his 1,037 Companions.
A working group, led from the Elysee Palace, defined the future bases of this public establishment - second order of national distinction after the Legion of Honor - and the role that the Head of State will play there.
"The order will be perpetuated, it is recorded", just agrees to say a source close to the file.
Army General Thierry Burkhard “does not want to think about his death at all.
"" He remains very alive in my eyes, with prodigious intellectual faculties.
I just know that his death will not be the end of an adventure.
But the opportunity to rekindle the flame, to inspire those who believe that nothing is ever lost.
"
Singular fate than that of the last companion: as desired by General de Gaulle, his body will rest first in a Parisian cemetery before being buried in vault n ° 9 (the last still empty) in the heart of the crypt from Mont Valérien. He will join sixteen other dead for France from 39-45 there "who represent at the same time all the forms of engagement and the various places of combat of France", explains the historian Vladimir Trouplin, curator of the museum of the Order of the Liberation (Paris VIIth).
According to our information, this national tribute will take place on a symbolic date: November 11, May 8, or even June 18.
After a ceremony at the Invalides, his coffin will stop at the foot of the statue of General de Gaulle, on the Champs-Élysées, then rest under the Arc de Triomphe, head-to-tail with the Unknown Soldier of 14-18.
The symbols of the two world wars will then be united.
The coffin will finally take the direction of the Suresnes Memorial, the main place of execution of the resistance fighters.
Hubert Germain took care of all the details of the ceremony.
“Not out of vanity, but because he accepted the idea of being a symbol, and that this moment serves for the edification of youth.
A man leaves, his heritage remains ", summarizes, at the Elysee, Bruno Roger-Petit, who also knows one thing: the day of his disappearance," Emmanuel Macron will be very affected ".
BIO EXPRESS
August 6, 1920.
Birth of Hubert Germain in Paris.
June 24, 1940.
Departure for England.
He enlisted in the Free French Forces.
Two weeks later, first meeting with General de Gaulle, near London.
June 1942.
Incorporated into the Foreign Legion (13th DBLE), he takes part in the battle of Bir-Hakeim.
May 24, 1944.
Wounded in Pontecorvo during the Italian campaign.
The lieutenant was made a companion of the Liberation on June 30 by de Gaulle.
He will be one of the first French to land in Provence on August 15.
October 3, 1945.
Marriage to Simone.
They will have three children.
Demobilized the following year, he made a career in the private sector.
April 1953.
Elected mayor of Saint-Chéron (Essonne) until 1965. Deputy for Paris in 1962.
July 1972.
Appointed Minister of PTT then of Relations with Parliament (in 1974) in the Messmer government, with whom he fought in the FFL.
June 13, 2018.
Macron elevates him to the dignity of Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, the highest French distinction.
November 25, 2020.
After the death of Daniel Cordier, he becomes the Chancellor of Honor of the Order of the Liberation.
