The prefect of Meuse, Xavier Delarue, announced plans to file a complaint over revisionist remarks made during a mass honoring Marshal Pétain in Verdun. About twenty sympathizers attended the service, despite opposition from the mayor and around a hundred protesters. The interior minister and the CRIF condemned the statements.
On Saturday, November 15, a mass honoring Marshal Pétain and his soldiers took place in Verdun's Saint-Jean-Baptiste church, shortly after the 1918 armistice commemoration. The city's mayor, Samuel Hazard (divers gauche), had attempted to ban the event with a decree, but the Nancy administrative court annulled it on Friday. The Association for Defending the Memory of Marshal Pétain (ADMP) had received authorization from the archbishop-bishop of Metz.
Only « a very small number » of people, « about twenty at most », attended the service, according to prefect Xavier Delarue. He had spoken beforehand with the priest to ensure compliance with the 1905 law on the separation of church and state, prohibiting political speeches. Upon exiting, ADMP president Jacques Boncompain told journalists that Pétain, head of the Vichy regime and condemned to death in 1945, was « the first resistant of France ». He added that the 1945 trial « did not meet the criteria of equity ». A protester shouted: « Aren't you afraid of prosecution? ».
Amid boos, Pierre-Nicolas Nups, a far-right activist and former Parti de la France candidate in the 2024 legislative elections in Meurthe-et-Moselle, sang « Maréchal, nous voilà ». The prefect also plans a complaint against « two individuals » linked to the party for harassing law enforcement.
Outside, about twenty police and gendarmes oversaw a hundred protesters singing La Marseillaise, with several elected officials present. Samuel Hazard said he was « deeply hurt », thinking « of all the victims of Nazi barbarity and the national revolution ». Parishioner Mariette Descamps held a sign reading « Catho, pas facho » and stated: « It is not possible that we deviate like this ».
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez reacted on X: « The remarks made today on the sidelines of a mass in “homage” to Philippe Pétain in Verdun are contrary to our collective memory. [...] I firmly condemn any attempt to rehabilitate a figure linked to collaboration and oppression. » Yonathan Arfi, CRIF president, denounced an « insult to the memory » of deportees, calling it « apology for collaboration ». Pétain, a World War I hero, was stripped of national dignity in 1945 for « intelligence with the enemy and high treason ».