French President Emmanuel Macron waded onto controversial ground Wednesday by praising a World War I general who subsequently collaborated with the Nazis in World War II.
Macron made the comments about Marshal Philippe Petain on a stop in the northern town of Charleville-Mezieres as part of his six-day tour of battlefields to mark the centenary of the end of World War I.
“Marshal Petain was also a great soldier during World War I” even though he made “fatal choices during World War II,” Macron said
“My role isn’t to understand that it’s shocking or to comment about people. My role is to try to explain, be firm in my convictions, face our history,” he added.
Petain led the French army to victory in Verdun in 1916, but gained infamy and a conviction for treason for his actions as leader of Vichy France from 1940 to 1944.
He is despised for his complicity in the Holocaust, among other things, and notably the 1942 deportation of 13,000 Jews from France, a third of whom were children, in the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup.
The unusual presidential praise was criticized by rival politicians and France’s leading Jewish group, known by the initials CRIF.
“Petain was the person who allowed the deportation of 76,000 French Jews to death camps,” CRIF president Francis Kalifat said.
He added that it was “an insult” that a French president could honor Petain on “the same level as the other generals.”
But he acknowledged the marshal’s pivotal role in the Great War that earned him the nickname “Lion of Verdun.”
French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux played down the issue as “false controversy.”
For years French leaders have treaded lightly when dealing with Petain’s tortuous legacy, which his critics say left an indelible stain on the country.
Former socialist president Francois Mitterrand provoked similar outrage by placing flowers on Petain’s tomb on the anniversary of the armistice for years, a practice his conservative successor Jacques Chirac quickly ended.