Emmanuel Macron is expected in the Vercors on Tuesday for an unprecedented tribute to this maquis, "the incarnation of a France inseparable from the Republic" which was attacked, exactly 80 years ago, by the French militia, before a final assault by German troops .
The Head of State must go to Vassieux-en-Vercors, a small village in the Drôme mountains completely destroyed during the Second World War, during a new stage of his memorial cycle to mark the 80th anniversary of the Liberation. At the beginning of the month he already went to the Glières plateau, another decimated maquis, and to the Izieu house, where Jewish children were rounded up by the Gestapo. The climax of the commemorations will take place in June in Normandy, in memory of the Allied landings.
In Vassieux-en-Vercors, the ceremony in two stages will take place from 3 p.m., first at the Resistance necropolis then in front of the martyrology, a bas-relief listing the names of the victims on the main square, where the President will deliver a speech. It is doubly unprecedented.
“This time when the French did not love each other”
Emmanuel Macron will in fact be the first President of the Republic to pay tribute there. Charles de Gaulle only made a “quick stop” there in 1963, recalls the Élysée, while Nicolas Sarkozy went to the neighboring village of La Chapelle-en-Vercors in 2009.
In addition, the Vercors maquis is traditionally celebrated on July 21, the date of the final and particularly “cruel” assault by German troops (840 resistance fighters and civilians killed, 570 houses destroyed). The choice of April 16 corresponds to the first attack by the French militia, so as not to obscure a “painful memory that continues,” the presidency further argues.
We must also talk about this "time when the French did not like each other", argues a close friend of the president, while another assumes to "take the story as a whole". “Making memory also means showing all the gray areas,” he explains.
Formed “as soon as the invasion of the free zone” by the Nazis in November 1942, this maquis initially composed of “refractories” in the service of compulsory labor – set up by Vichy for the benefit of the occupier – counted until 4,000 men, including around fifty Senegalese riflemen and around thirty Polish high school students, a presidential advisor reminded journalists.
The Head of State intends to insist on the “exemplary” character of this maquis, which shortly before the German assault had proclaimed itself the “Free Republic of Vercors”, which the Élysée today praises as “the incarnation of a France inseparable from the Republic”.
In July 1944, it was the scene of intense fighting against the Resistance, until the withdrawal of German troops on August 12. Vassieux is one of the five municipalities elevated to the dignity of Companion of the Liberation with Paris, Nantes, the island of Sein and Grenoble.