On July 19, 2013, the National Assembly unanimously adopted a bill from the Senate establishing May 27 as the National Day of Resistance.
Yesterday, in the late afternoon, civil and military authorities and the entire veteran community paid tribute to this day during a ceremony at the Garden of Villa Thiole.
Choosing May 27 to celebrate the resistance is not trivial. It is indeed the anniversary of the creation of the National Council of Resistance, the body created by Free France around Jean Moulin to provide more cohesion and effectiveness to the various French Resistance movements during the Occupation.
Let us remember, on this May 27, the humanist, democratic, and patriotic values that inspired the Resistance’s fight, which form part of our duty to remember those who fought and often fell for freedom. It is also about addressing the need to remember the tragedies and struggles of the past, in a world that still experiences wars, racism in all its forms, xenophobia, violations of freedoms and human dignity, torture, the resurgence of fascism, against which the fight led by the Resistance must continue.
As early as the summer of 1940, outside the country, General de Gaulle’s appeal from London on June 18 rallied the first Free French around him, while on the occupied national soil, men and women refused capitulation, occupation, the assassination of the Republic, and the suppression of freedoms, affirming their determination to continue the fight.
