Six months after the disappearance of Patrick Devedjian, brutally swept away by the Covid at the end of March, the Hauts-de-Seine department, of which he was president, paid him a strong tribute on Friday.
During this long day of remembrance, many political figures were keen to be present to greet an esteemed figure of the right.
Many of them met at 10:30 am in the cathedral of Nanterre.
We could see in particular Nicolas Sarkozy, François Fillon, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Jean-François Copé, Valérie Pécresse, Dominique Bussereau, Pierre Bedier ... and Emmanuel Macron's chief of staff, Patrick Strzoda.
During the mass, celebrated according to the Armenian rite in the presence of an Armenian choir, with a reading of the same gospel as that which had been chosen for Jacques Chirac (gospel of Jesus Christ according to Matthew), his wife and two of the four sons of Patrick Devedjian took the floor.
A man of culture
At 2 p.m., a tribute on the forecourt of La Défense was also paid, followed, at 4 p.m., by the symbolic signing of a donation from Pierre Rosenberg, linked to the last cultural project of the former president of the community, the creation of the museum. Grand-Siècle in Saint-Cloud, in the Sully barracks.
Finally, the last highlight of this day was planned at the Seine Musicale.
This place of spectacle located on the downstream point of the Seguin island in Boulogne-Billancourt in the Hauts-de-Seine, was one of the great projects of Patrick Devedjian.
The site was built under a partnership contract signed in July 2013 between the General Council and the Tempo Île Seguin group.
President Devedjian laid the foundation stone there on July 5, 2014. And on Friday, guests discovered that the auditorium would now bear his name.
There, in the presence of Georges Siffredi, successor of Patrick Devedjian at the head of the department, we expected Edouard Philippe, Pierre Bedi, Gérard Longuet, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, Catherine Pégard as well as many elected officials from Ile-de-France and Hauts-de-Seine.
Because of the news of stabbing attacks in the 11th arrondissement, the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo was forced to cancel her presence.
To salute the work of the politician who died at the age of 75, the organizers have mobilized a series of moving testimonies, the Insula Orchestra Laurence Equilbey, the Philippe Jaroussky Music Academy and the Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine.
On the invitation card, the guests - including government spokesperson Gabriel Attal and Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot - discovered a photograph of the elected official.
He appears smiling, with a political reflection recalling one of his convictions, like a message addressed to the new generations.
"Culture changes mentalities, builds social cohesion, lifts spirits and brings them together".