“Rethink the way we treat animals.”
A monument paying tribute to animals who died during wars, primarily the First World War, was inaugurated Tuesday in a Paris square, more than five years after the project was approved.
The horizon blue silhouettes - the color of the Poilus' outfit - of a horse, a donkey, a dog and a soldier holding a pigeon now stand in the elegant Boucicaut square, located between Le Bon Marché and the Lutetia hotel, left bank, in the 7th arrondissement.
It was a few steps away, on Boulevard Raspail, that the dog Vitrier was found at the end of August 1914, at the start of the war,
“weakened, returning from the front, having lost track of the 26th battalion (.. .) to which he was attached”
, recalls the explanatory plaque.
Eleven million equines, 100,000 dogs and 250,000 pigeons perished during the Great War while
“playing an essential role”
, it is recalled: transport of military equipment, food or mail, relief and even aerial photography... For The Paris Animaux Zoopolis (PAZ) association is the culmination of
“five years of relentless campaigning”
, initiated in 2018 for the centenary of the Armistice.
Monuments “reserved for humans”
If a wish was quickly adopted unanimously by the Council of Paris,
“elected officials opposed”
such a monument because they believed
“that monuments were reserved for humans
,” its co-founder Amandine Sanvisens told AFP. .
For Laurence Patrice, deputy (PCF) for memory, PAZ
“wanted that the place be linked to a historic location, which limited the choice”
and explains the half-decade that passed for the project to come to fruition.
“The support of the President of French Remembrance”
, guarantor of the memory of the soldiers who died for France,
“was decisive”
, says Sanvisens, recalling that Paris thus joins municipalities in the north-east of France and, at the same time, abroad, some pioneering capitals: Ottawa, Canberra, London and Brussels.
“For around twenty years, the Anglo-Saxons have developed another memory where the animal takes on its own personality
,” remarks Serge Barcellini, general president of French Souvenir.
For Amandine Sanvisens,
“this monument is an opportunity to rethink the way we treat animals”
.
Two plaques paying tribute to the horses requisitioned during the 1914-18 war already exist in Paris.