• This Monday afternoon, Emmanuel Macron went to Lyon to pay tribute to the resistance and in particular to Jean Moulin, arrested eighty years ago.
  • A very locked visit, the demonstrators being kept at a safe distance so as not to disturb the ceremony.
  • Between 3,000 and 5,000 people nevertheless marched through the streets of Lyon, without their pan ever reaching the ears of the President of the Republic.

In the streets of Lyon surrounding the former prison of Montluc, not the slightest trace of a living soul. Not even a curious leaning on the balcony. The neighborhood, cordoned off, takes on the appearance of a ghost town. The cordons of CRS deployed along the adjoining buildings monitor any possible intrusion while waiting for the arrival of Emmanuel Macron. This is where the President of the Republic must pay tribute to the resistance fighters and to Jean Moulin, arrested eighty years ago. His arrival is announced for 14:40 p.m.

At 600 meters from the scene, the demonstrators, kept at a distance, begin to heat their voices without the slightest echo reaching the entrance of the memorial. Only the insistent honking of the locomotives passing nearby break the silence and remind us that the pension reform is far from being digested.


#lyon #macron #Casserolades #8mai pic.twitter.com/skgmVb1jYS

— Medave Prod (@medaveprod) May 8, 2023

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Last instructions before the arrival of the Head of State. The press, with the exception of a handful of journalists, must remain inside the establishment. Head to the press room, whose access is locked by a palisade. No possibility to go out to attend the arrival. Nor to go to the toilet during the visit that will have to be followed on a giant screen.

Casserolades and chanting of the partisans

15:07 pm. Emmanuel Macron introduces himself and stops in front of the Alpine hunters posted at the entrance of the prison. Wreath laying. The president quickly kneels while an officer's choir sings the Marseillaise and the song of the partisans in Capella. Face concentrated, he raises his head, his eyes sometimes closed, as if locked in a bubble. Very far from the sounds of pots and pans and lids that redouble. Meanwhile, however, the ranks of the demonstrators continue to grow. 3,000 according to the prefecture, 5,000 according to the CGT. But still not the slightest sound of perceptible discontent.

Then, the President of the Republic greets the officials, embraces the Klarsfeld couple, shakes hands, tutos the deputies from his rank, exchanges a few warm smiles with Grégory Doucet, the mayor of Lyon who slips him mischievously "It is I who welcomes you and welcomes you". It is time to rush into the walls of the old prison to follow the visit in the footsteps of Claude Bloch. At the age of 94, he was the last deportee still alive in Lyon. The only one who can still testify to the horror of the jails of Montluc. At 15, and only because he was a Jewish kid, he was locked up there for three weeks before being taken to Auschwitz.

On each floor, the cells recall the atrocity of the Nazi regime. A space of four square meters, in which were crammed up to eight resistants, sleeping on the ground like animals. In the room, a single basin as a sanitary, a window far too high to let in the sun's rays. And thick wooden doors that only opened when detainees were taken out to be tortured. Ten thousand men and women lived there between February 1943 and August 1944, awaiting execution or deportation.

"The Republic is necessary, vital, just"

In each cell, there are portraits of famous resistance fighters: Marc Bloch, Raymond Aubrac, André Frossard but also Jean Moulin. A "child of the Republic", says Emmanuel Macron in his tribute speech. Not a word about the mobilization of the day but as if he wanted to respond to the demonstrators, the head of state insists on the "French Republic" which is "by definition, neither bad nor harmful" but "necessary, vital, just". "It still is today," he continues. We live in a country where the idea of republic and human progress can never be separated with impunity." And to recall the role that political parties and unions played alongside Jean Moulin.

On May 27, 1943, when he chaired the founding meeting of the National Council of the Resistance, "the Communist Party is there, the Radical Party too (...) The Democratic Party is there. Jean Moulin is the man of London, and yet the resistance fighters from within are there, as are the two major unions of the Republican France: the CGT and the CFDT, supports Emmanuel Macron. Thus are present all the forces of renewal, the forces of work, the forces of youth, finally assembled within the same organization. »

Outside, the street rumbles. Alerts indicate that the black blocs have invited themselves into the procession and that they have just broken into the town hall of the 3rd arrondissement of Lyon. While the President of the Republic leaves the memorial, Véronique Dubois Bertrand, the ecologist mayor of the 3rd hastens to follow suit to go urgently on site. "I can't understand the need to break up to be heard even if I can understand the despair of some," she says.

"We have a president who is in his bubble"

Emmanuel Macron, escorted and always carefully kept away from the crowd, is already on his way to the airport. "I understand the concern of wanting to protect the President of the Republic but I found it a little excessive. I do not want to give lessons to anyone but the way to manage security, in the demonstrations and here, questions me, "says the elected before slipping away.

"I would have liked there to be more people here and that's what I told the President of the Republic, continues the ecologist senator Thomas Dossus. I would have liked the inhabitants to have been able to attend this tribute, which is important for our city. Unfortunately, given the crisis we are in today, this tribute could not be opened to the public. Half of the city is under a bell. We lived a tribute under a bubble. This Monday morning, the president paraded on the Champs-Élysées completely deserted. He will have to come out of his denial. Even a tribute as solemn as this one could not be consensual. And to conclude: "I wonder how we will do another four years with a president in his bubble, distant from his people."


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