The fact that Macron has launched himself

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Macron on Wednesday spoke of the shadow of World War II looming over France’s increasingly tense and divisive election campaign, though he won’t announce his own candidacy for reelection until early in the year. next year.

His presence in the town was calculated to counter Zemmour, 63, a far-right television expert who was convicted of inciting racial hatred. This weekend, Zemmour launched his own candidacy for the April presidential election, promising to “save” French civilization from immigration.

Emmanuel Macron pays tribute to a memorial to the Jews deported from Vichy during the Second World War. Photography: Ludovic Marin / AFP / Getty
To the anger of historians, Zemmour has repeatedly said that Vichy protects French Jews. He said on the radio: “This is my fight against repentance and guilt. The French are constantly made to feel guilty.

Jacques Chirac was the first president, in 1995, to fully recognize phone number library the role of France and the French state in bringing Jews together for concentration camps during the “criminal madness” of the Nazi occupation. After the war, Pétain was sentenced to death for treason, commuted to life imprisonment.

French historians have furiously denounced Zemmour. Historian Jacques Sémelin wrote in Le Monde that Zemmour’s statements on Vichy had “no historical basis”.

Macron’s trip to Vichy is the first time since 1978 that a French president has made an official visit to talk about the history of the city. Before a planned visit to a memorial for deported Jews, Macron told local radio station France Bleu that “history is written by historians”, and it was a good thing to “respect and respect it. to learn “and to allow historians to construct a truth built on documents and traces of the past. He said history should not be “manipulated” or “stirred” or “revised” and that France should honor those who fought to make it free.