Jean Castex paid tribute on Friday July 2 to the French and German fighters in the Battle of Verdun, 105 years ago, saluting their "
sacrifice
" and in passing pinpointing the "
general relativism of a society which sometimes forgets its duties
".
Read also: Jean Castex welcomes the commitment of young people from the SNU
Where a total of 300,000 men perished between February 21 and December 18, 1916, “
it was no longer French blood that flowed, it was no longer German blood, it was simply the mixed blood of the humanity
”, affirmed the Prime Minister, noting that this battle had been“
both the crucible of a formidable surpassing of oneself and of a historical process of dehumanization which announced others, worse still
”, with the Second World War.
"
More than ever, Verdun calls for the obligation to remember because forgetting breeds disinterest and disinterest breeds indifference
", he added of the necropolis of Douaumont, which houses the bones of 130,000 French soldiers and Germans. In front of an audience of soldiers but also young volunteers of the Universal National Service (SNU), the Prime Minister pleaded to "
keep the memory of their sacrifice
".
A week after elections marked by a record abstention, the Prime Minister noted the big gap, without it being "
inevitable
", between the "
sacrifice of
"
those of 14
"" and the "
general relativism of a society which sometimes forgets his duties with regard to the life of the City
”. Urging to "
learn the lessons of history
", Jean Castex also underlined that it was "
here, in the middle of this battlefield, that the great idea of a united and pacified Europe has perhaps really germinated
" . Echoing thus the German Ambassador to France Hans-Dieter Lucas who shortly before had assured that "
the happy future of this continent results in a united and strong Germany and France
”.
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Previously, Jean Castex, accompanied by two children, had laid a wreath of flowers and had gathered in front of the monument to the dead, in Verdun, under the drums of the Nouba of the 1st infantry regiment of Épinal.
Alongside the Minister of Veterans Affairs Geneviève Darrieussecq and the Secretary of State for European Affairs Clément Beaune, he then went to the citadel of Verdun.
In the underground, they boarded a gondola for a virtual reality tour, a recreation of the ceremony of choosing the unknown soldier in 1920.
