Their memory is now officially honored.
A commemorative plaque in memory of the Renault factory workers deported or shot during the Second World War was unveiled on Tuesday morning on Place Jules-Guesde in Boulogne-Billancourt.
It was there, on what was then Place Nationale, that the workers left the famous factories every day.
If this past is recalled by the presence of the siren of Renault-Billancourt, the resistance to the Nazi occupier which led a hundred of them to be deported and thirty others to be shot, was not up to now not set in stone.
It is to pay tribute to them and bring their memory to life that the Association of former workers of Renault-Billancourt Île Seguin (Atris) asked the municipality to organize this ceremony, which was held in the presence of former employees. Renault factories, members of veterans' associations, and students from the Simone-Veil high school.
" It is hard to believe "
At the center of the tributes, the name of Robert Créange keeps coming back.
Former employee of Renault, ex-municipal councilor, communist activist and member of Atris, he was at the initiative of this commemoration, which was to be held on December 3 last.
But he had fallen ill the day before the ceremony, which had therefore been postponed.
And Robert Créange died shortly before Christmas at the age of 90.
"My first thoughts go to Robert Créange, a tireless smuggler of memory who, with others, was on the initiative of the inauguration of this plaque", testified, moved, Pierre-Christophe Baguet (LR), the mayor of Boulogne-Billancourt.
The elected official honored the memory of these “heroes of Renault, like Yves Kermen, permanent secretary of the CGT section of Billancourt, shot in the clearing of the fort of Mont Valérien.
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Arezki Amazouz, president of Atris, read the text written by Robert Créange: “It's hard to believe.
Nearly 80 years to obtain a tribute to be paid to the workers of Renault-Billancourt, who paid with their lives or their freedom for their resistance to the Nazi occupiers.
The rest of the deceased's speech retraces the sabotage actions of the Renault resistance fighters and the dark side of the group's history during this period.
Louis Renault's collabo past divides
“Some, fortunately in the minority, will find there the ideal conditions to get rid of the intruders who will no longer be able to oppose anti-union repression, continues Arezki Amazouz, still reading Robert Créange's speech.
The denunciations were going well.
Coming out of work, it was perhaps the last time we shook hands with a colleague, friend or comrade!
The active collaboration of Louis Renault, then boss of the group, and which earned him the confiscation of his property and the forfeiture of his French nationality, was also recalled in the text.
But this dark side does not appear on the plaque unveiled on Tuesday, as some communist activists point out.
“It had been hoped that the complicity of the management of the Renault-Billancourt factory at the time be evoked through the role of its internal police, but the current management of Renault refused.
A compromise was therefore necessary, ”insists Raphaël Charlet, of the local section of the PCF.
"Robert was a facilitator in overcoming these misunderstandings and so that we could finally pay tribute to those who sacrificed themselves", slice Arezki Amazouz.
“It is not a question of casting opprobrium on an entire company because of a few isolated cases”, nuances Pierre-Christophe Baguet, who welcomed the intervention of several students from the Simone Veil high school, built at the place of the old factories of the diamond brand.
The high school students read the poem Liberté by Paul Éluard before the Chant des partisans and the Marseillaise were played.
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Two weeks before his disappearance, Robert Créange had visited high school students.
“Now it's your job to fight against intolerance!
he had told them.
A message that high school students have made their own.
“It is important that this story does not fall into oblivion because it resonates in the news.
There are still wars and massacres because of religion and skin color.
We must perpetuate the memory to prevent these events from happening again, ”says Rayane, a final year student.