Patrick Bruel and Fire!
Chatterton will accompany the entry of Missak Manouchian and his wife into the Pantheon on Wednesday.
The 64-year-old singer will read the last letter from the resistance fighter to his beloved.
The rock group will sing the song
L'Affiche rouge
by Léo Ferré, in tribute to his ultimate sacrifice.
Missak Manouchian, a stateless poet of Armenian origin, and 23 of his comrades in arms, all foreigners, will enter the Pantheon, 80 years to the day after their execution, on February 21, 1944, for the most part.
At 6:30 p.m., the coffins of “Manouche” and his wife Mélinée, a resistance fighter who survived until 1989, will be placed on rue Soufflot before walking up the street to the Pantheon.
At this same time, President Emmanuel Macron will arrive at Place du Panthéon for a review of the troops and military honors, intended to salute the fighting commitment of the communist resistance fighter and his group, the Élysée said Tuesday evening.
The coffins will then enter the nave of the Pantheon where the head of state will deliver a speech.
The ceremony will end at 8:00 p.m.
“There were 20 and 3 of them when the guns appeared.”
When the coffins arrived on the square, Fire!
Chatterton will sing Léo Ferré's song,
L'Affiche Rouge
, in a revisited version.
The Song of the Partisans
will also resonate.
During the Occupation of Paris, Charles Aznavour's parents helped the Manouchians hide.
On the way to the Pantheon, the memory of the singer will also be there with his song
They fell
.
Read also Pantheonization of Manouchian: “When the wheat is under the hail, a fool who acts delicately”
The singer Patrick Bruel, member of the support committee for the “pantheonization” of Manouchian, will open the ceremony by reading the farewell letter to Mélinée, who inspired Aragon and Léo Ferré in the 1950s, bringing the resistance fighter into the legend.
“My dear Mélinée, my beloved little orphan, in a few hours, I will no longer be in this world.
We are going to be shot this afternoon at 3 p.m.
This happens to me like an accident in my life, I don’t believe it, but yet I know that I will never see you again
,” wrote Missak Manouchian, at 37 years old.
Other texts from the resistance will be read.
If the couple remains united in death - they were both buried in the Parisian cemetery of Ivry - Mélinée is not herself “pantheonized”.
The 23 other resistance fighters enter the Pantheon in a symbolic way, with the inscription of their names on a plaque.