Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech Tuesday evening during the induction of historian and resistance fighter Marc Bloch into the Panthéon. He called for fighting the spirit of defeat, which he described as a slow poison of public life.
The ceremony took place Tuesday June 23 2026 at the Panthéon in Paris. The cenotaphs of Marc Bloch and his wife Simonne were carried along rue Soufflot. Bloch, executed by the Gestapo in 1944, is buried in Bourg-d’Hem in the Creuse.
Macron drew on Bloch’s book L’Étrange Défaite. He denounced those who proclaim themselves more French than others and foster the spirit of defeat. The president linked these attitudes to the capitulations of the 1930s and 1940s.
He also condemned state antisemitism under Vichy. Macron stated that this scourge reveals a path of darkness fed by an ideological machinery of hate and an epidemic of cowardice. The speech was applauded by part of the audience.