French officials condemn pro-Petain mass in Verdun, calling it revisionist, as legal action is announced over comments praising WWII collaborator
VERDUN: A senior French official said Saturday he would take legal action over comments made following a tribute to Philippe Petain, France’s wartime head of state convicted of treason after World War II.
The row is the latest controversy over the legacy of Petain, a World War I hero disgraced for his collaboration with the Nazis.
Xavier Delarue, the government prefect of Meuse department in eastern France, said he would take action over comments made following a mass for Petain organised by an association dedicated to restoring his reputation.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez also condemned the comments.
The Association to Defend the Memory of Marshal Petain (ADMP) organised a mass Saturday at the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Verdun, where Petain won a famous WWI battle in 1916.
Around 20 association members attended, while outside about 100 people, watched by police, gathered to protest the ceremony.
After the mass ADMP president Jacques Boncompain told journalists that Petain had been “the first resistant of France”.
Boncompain also said Petain’s post-war conviction for treason by a High Court of Justice had not been a fair one.
Delarue, announcing his legal action, said the comments had been “clearly revisionist”.
Nunez, in a post on X, said: “The remarks made today on the sidelines of a mass in ‘tribute’ to Philippe Petain in Verdun go against our collective memory.”
The minister condemned any attempt to rehabilitate someone linked to WWII collaboration and oppression.
‘Deeply hurt’
The ceremony in tribute to Petain came just days after France’s Armistice Day on November 11, the day WWII ended, when the nation remembers those who fought and died in the conflict.
Verdun’s mayor, Samuel Hazard, had tried to ban the pro-Petain ceremony, but was overruled by an administrative court ruling on Friday.
“I’m deeply hurt, because I think of all the victims of Nazi barbarism and… Marshal Petain’s ideology,” he said after Saturday’s ceremony.
Petain’s admirers stress the role he played as a general in World War I. He is widely seen as the architect of France’s victory over German forces at Verdun, the longest battle of the war.
But he only avoided the death penalty after being convicted at the end of WWII for leading France’s collaborationist Vichy government because of his advanced age.
Petain died in 1951, six years into his life sentence in exile on the Atlantic island of Yeu. – AFP
