This Thursday, June 18, on the square of the same name, Nice commemorated the 86th anniversary of General de Gaulle’s Call. Presided over by prefect Laurent Hottiaux, the event brought together elected officials, military personnel and students for a moment of remembrance and transmission.
“A nation does not die from a military defeat”
At 5 p.m., the Marseillaise opened the tribute for a call that proved to be the founding act of the French Resistance, broadcast on BBC radio in 1940.
Accompanied by the brass band, firefighters, national police, and military personnel, the voice of Marie-Christine Fitz, regional delegate of the Free France Foundation, opened the speeches.
In an engaged tone, she recalled the context of June 1940: a defeated army, millions of French on exodus roads, and a country that believed all was lost. But “a nation does not die when it suffers a military defeat. It dies only when it renounces its freedom, its honor and its hope“, she recalled, citing the spirit of the call.
The message also resonated with international current events. The war in Ukraine, tensions in the Middle East appear as many realities that give the June 18 call a burning significance.
“Will we be able to move past what divides us to put forward what unites us?” she asked the audience.
A Masséna high school student reads the call
A ceremony reinforced by a powerful moment, that of reading the call by Isa Balestro, a student at Masséna high school and winner of the National Resistance and Deportation Competition. She delivered the General’s words with clarity under the attentive gaze of the crowd and many students present.
“This flame is yours”
It was then Eric Ciotti, mayor of Nice, who took the floor. In a deeply felt speech, he mentioned René Cassin, a native of Nice, former student of Masséna high school, who embarked for England just days after the Call and became one of the fathers of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
He also cited Séraphin Torrin and Ange Grassi, resistance fighters and communists, both hanged on Jean-Médecin Avenue on July 7, 1944 by the Nazis. “Neither the same profession, nor the same political party, nor the same birthplace as René Cassin, but the same France in their hearts.”
And this, before concluding by turning to middle school students: “this square is yours. This flame is yours now. Never let it go out.”
Recalling the figures of Free France
A message from the deputy minister to the minister of the Armed Forces and War Veterans, Alice Rufo, was finally read by Laurent Hottiaux before the assembly, recalling the universal figures of Free France: Josephine Baker, “intelligence heroine”; Félix Éboué, grandson of a slave and first stronghold of Free France from Chad; Joseph Kessel, author of the Song of the Partisans.
Destinies united by the same refusal. “Our people are never greater than when they refuse the defeat of the spirit”, he concluded.
It was with emotion that the ceremony ended with wreaths being laid, the last post sounding, a minute of silence, and a final Marseillaise.
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