The National Assembly voted on the night of Thursday to Friday, January 14, a bill asking for the rehabilitation of more than 600 soldiers "
shot for example
", a dark page of the First World War.
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The text, which had been rejected by the Defense Committee at the Palais Bourbon in early January, was adopted in the hemicycle by 39 votes to 26 and 9 abstentions.
It was proposed for first reading as part of a day reserved for the LFI group by MP Bastien Lachaud.
“Close the memory wounds”
The votes in favor came from all the benches on the right as well as on the left. Several LREM deputies also voted in favor, although most members of the majority group voted against. The Modem also found itself divided. "
More than a hundred years later, we must close the memorial wounds
," said Bastien Lachaud, professor of history of training, at the podium. Secretary of State Adrien Taquet, on behalf of the government, highlighted the steps already taken for better historical knowledge and appeasement on this issue. "
The Ministry of the Armed Forces has long been committed to a process of history and transparency
" on this subject, he said.
Sophie Beaudouin-Hubière (LREM) warned against a "
politicized reading and imprint of modern ideas
" on this page of history, pointing out that some shot were "
multi-recidivists of desertion
". “
Soldiers in service in the French armies from August 2, 1914 to November 11, 1918 who have been sentenced to death for military disobedience or voluntary mutilation (...) and whose sentence has been carried out, are subject to general rehabilitation. and collective, civic and moral
”, states the text.
"
The Nation recognizes that these soldiers were victims of expeditious justice, an instrument of a repressive policy, which did not respect the rights of the defense and did not take into account the context of extreme brutalization to which the soldiers were subjected
", continues the bill, which requires that the names of those concerned be inscribed on war memorials and that a national monument be erected.
François Hollande in 2013 acknowledged that "
some (soldiers) were arbitrarily condemned and shot
."
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Then president, he was part of the continuity of the declarations of Lionel Jospin, Prime Minister, in 1998, then of Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2008, who had each wished in their own way a reintegration of the shots into the national memory.
In recent years, however, parliamentarians have not adopted various legislative proposals, coming from the left, and advocating collective rehabilitation.