Who are Missak and Meline Manouchian, this couple of resistance fighters who will enter the Pantheon?

President Emmanuel Macron will bring resistance figure of Armenian origin Misak Manouchian and his wife Melina to the Pantheon. “Misak Manouchian carries a part of our greatness”, he “embodies the universal values” of freedom, equality, fraternity, in the name of which he “defended the Republic,” the president said in a press release.

The announcement, commemorating the anniversary of the June 18 address, which the president celebrates in the morning in Mont-Valérien, near Paris, where many resistance fighters and hostages, including Misak Manouchian, were executed by the army. .

Misak Manushyan was born in 1906 in Khysn-Mansur, in the Ottoman Empire and in the south of modern Turkey. He survived the Armenian Genocide, is stateless and became a refugee in France in 1925 after losing his parents. He emigrated to Marseille in 1925 and worked in the shipyards of La Seyne-sur-Mer (Var) before being hired as a turner by Citroën in Paris.

Member of the infamous Red Poster

During World War II, this gymnastics and writing enthusiast joined the communist resistance in the FTP MOI (Francs Tireurs Partisans – immigrant workforce) group and became its military leader before being arrested by the French police after a long shadow, then tortured and shot. by the Germans on February 21, 1944 at Mont-Valérien with 22 other comrades.

According to Nazi propaganda, he is part of the “criminal army”, along with other immigrant resistance fighters, immortalized on the “red poster” massively plastered throughout France during the occupation. The Germans putting up 15,000 red posters had the opposite effect of what was expected, as it became an emblem of martyrdom and turned these people, including Misak Manouchian, into heroes.

A carpenter by training, he will not enter the Pantheon alone, as he will be accompanied by Meline, his wife of Armenian origin. Also resilient, she joined France in 1925 and has been buried next to her in the cemetery of Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne) since 1989.

Unlike Missak, she runs from the police while being hidden by the Aznavourians. (family of singer Charles Aznavour) while her husband was followed for several months. Also a member of the French Communist Party, she met Misak Manouchian in 1934 during the annual celebration of the French Section of the Committee for Relief of Armenia (CMP), then took over the administrative secretariat of the CMP, including the Zangou magazine run by Misak. Manushyan.

A very driven woman

The couple married on February 22, 1936, requiring a “special marriage certificate” from stateless persons. Together they founded the Franco-Armenian People’s Union, and also took up fundraising for the Spanish Republicans.

During World War II, when her husband was imprisoned for his closeness to the Soviet Union, she was very dedicated to her work and had to print leaflets and deliver secret messages. She was then tasked with detecting and spying on attack targets, as well as writing reports for the commandos.

In 1943, she only learned a few weeks later of her husband’s execution by the Germans and quickly resumed her activities in the Resistance until the end of the war.

After the conflict, she settled in Yerevan for fourteen years and in 1954 wrote a biography of her husband, from which she published a collection of poems two years later. In 1983, she participated in the making of the documentary “Terrorists in Retirement”, which exposed the responsibility of the leadership of the Communist Party of France in what led to the arrest of the Red Banners by the police, as well as the lack of support provided to the members of the Manushyan group before their arrest.

On December 31, 1986, François Mitterrand named her Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, three years before her death on December 6, 1989. She was buried in the Paris cemetery of Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne). before reuniting with her husband in 1994.

Thirty years later, on February 21, 2024, these two resistance heroes will enter the Pantheon together and become the first foreign and communist resistance fighters to join the temple of the great figures of the Republic.