The last French fighter of the Second World War decorated by General de Gaulle, Hubert Germain, was buried at Mont-Valérien.
Son of a general of the colonial troops, he passed the entrance examination for the naval school of the city of Bordeaux, at the time of the debacle of the French army against the German troops in the spring of 1940. “After five minutes , I said to myself: 'But what are you doing here?'
", He explained in 2018." I stood up and said to the examiner: 'I am going to war' ".
Between June and July 1940, some 7,000 French set off for Great Britain. Among them, hundreds of future Companions of the Liberation, often in their twenties, revolted by the surrender of Marshal Pétain. Hubert Germain embarked at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, aboard a ship transporting Polish soldiers bound for England and arrived in London on June 24, 1940. He joined the Foreign Legion: “This is the first time of my life where I have the voluntary feeling of death. You had to kill to get through, ”said the man who was to become Georges Pompidou's minister. Hubert Germain fights in Syria, in Libya where he is engaged in the fights of Bir Hakeim and in Egypt. He also participated in the landing of Provence: “When I arrived on the beach, I had no more legs. I cried. Not long.Three or four sobs. The war continued ”.
A third of the Liberation companions died in combat, and 80% of the survivors were wounded during the conflict. Five of them rest in the Panthéon - Felix Eboué, André Malraux, René Cassin, Jean Moulin and Pierre Brossolette. Father of the Free French Forces (FFL), Charles de Gaulle had created the Order of the Liberation in November 1940 to "reward the persons or the military and civilian communities who will have distinguished themselves in the work of liberation of France and its empire. ". Only 1,038 people, including six women, received the title of Companion of the Liberation.
The last companions have disappeared one after the other over the past decade, including Daniel Cordier, who died at the age of 100 on November 20, 2020. Left for London on June 21 at the age of 19 before becoming two years later the secretary of Jean Moulin, legendary figure of internal resistance which succumbed to the hands of the Gestapo.
