Josephine Baker: The artist's remains go to the Pantheon

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Josephine Baker (1906-1975)

Photo: Hulton Archive / Getty Images

She is the first black woman to receive this honor: the remains of the French-American entertainer and resistance fighter Josephine Baker are transferred to the Paris Pantheon.

A spokesman for President Emmanuel Macron confirmed this on Sunday.

Baker was born in the US state of Missouri in 1906 and was buried in Monaco in 1975.

The Pantheon is a memorial to great figures in French history from politics, culture and science.

Of the 80 buried there, only five are women.

Only the French President can decide on the burial of personalities in the former church in Paris, whose large columns and domed roof were inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.

A group around Baker's son Brian Bouillon-Baker had been campaigning for the transfer of Baker to the Hall of Fame since 2013.

In mid-July, the group met Macron, as advocate and entrepreneur Jennifer Guesdon said.

"We were very happy when the President said yes," she said.

"She was an artist, the first black international star, a Cubist muse, a resistance fighter in the French army in World War II, active at the side of Martin Luther King in the fight for civil rights," says a petition that the Baker had requested entry into the monument and received 38,000 signatures.

"Josephine Baker is a real anti-racist, a real anti-fascist," affirmed the writer Pascal Bruckner, who was one of the supporters.

The transfer ceremony is scheduled to take place on November 30th.

Baker had married Frenchman Jean Lion on the date, which gave her French citizenship.

cbu / AFP