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French president pays tribute to wartime resistance heroes

Xinhua, May 28, 2015 Adjust font size:

French President Francois Hollande on Wednesday paid tribute to four "admirable heroes" of the French wartime resistance "to be taken as an example to inspire new generations."

Portraits of Germaine Tillion, Genevieve de Gaulle Anthonioz, Jean Zay and Pierre Brossolette were displayed on France's legendary Pantheon where French national heroes, including writers, artists and scientists, were entombed.

"History unites us when it becomes shared memory. It shows us our strength and what it could be our weakness. It shows the imminent responsibility to be up to the challenges of today and tomorrow," the president told a gathering commemorating the four heroes who fought Nazi occupation in WWII.

As the Song of Partisans, a resistance hymn, placed, coffins were transported into the Republican temple. The French head of state and the heroes' families followed the procession.

The coffins of the two fallen men will be laid to rest alongside the country's most famous figures while only soil from the graves of the two women will be buried in a symbolic move due to their families' objection to remove their remais. Endit