PARIS, June 23 — Valerie Leroux Historian and Resistance fighter Marc Bloch, who was tortured and executed by the Gestapo in 1944, will enter the Pantheon today in a rare tribute reserved for France’s most revered historical figures.

The ceremony at France’s secular temple of national memory will celebrate his intellectual legacy, as well as his role in the fight against the Nazis.

He will become the first historian to enter the Pantheon, an honour reserved for the most exceptional figures from the worlds of politics, culture and science.

“It’s a tremendous recognition,” said Suzette Bloch, the historian’s granddaughter, a former AFP journalist.

President Emmanuel Macron has described the historian of Jewish heritage as a “man of the Enlightenment in the army of the shadows”—a reference to the French Resistance.

He is to be honoured for his “for his work, his teaching and his courage”.

Political message 

The ceremony carries political significance less than a year before France heads to the polls to elect a successor to Macron, with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party eyeing its best chance at seizing power.

Bloch’s family requested that far-right politicians be excluded from the ceremony, citing the historian’s “deeply anti-nationalist” views.

While protocol requires parliamentary leaders to be invited, Le Pen—who leads the RN in the lower house—will not attend, a member of her team said.

Born into a Jewish family from Alsace, Bloch was a renowned specialist of the Middle Ages. He revolutionised the study of history by incorporating anthropology, economics and sociology.

He fought in World War I and was decorated for bravery, receiving the Legion of Honour among other awards.

The 53-year-old father of six was mobilised again as World War II began in 1939.

Despite his standing, he was stripped of his rights as a Jewish academic in 1940, and his apartment was requisitioned.

Tortured under ‘Butcher of Lyon’ 

After the Nazis occupied all of France, Bloch joined the French Resistance in 1943.

Captured by the Vichy police in 1944, he was tortured under the authority of Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie, who was nicknamed the “Butcher of Lyon” for his cruelty and sadism.

On June 16, 1944, 10 days after Allied forces landed in Normandy, Bloch was executed by the Nazis alongside other Resistance fighters.

He cried “Vive la France!” (“Long live France!”) as he was shot.

In his posthumously published work L’Etrange Defaite (“Strange Defeat”), Bloch analysed why France fell to Nazi Germany, highlighting the failures of the military leadership.

Bloch is buried in a village cemetery in central France, and, in accordance with his family’s wishes, his remains will not be moved.

During the ceremony in Paris, scheduled to begin at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Tuesday, a symbolic casket will be carried into the former church in the French capital’s Latin Quarter.

It will be accompanied by a casket of his wife, Simonne Vidal, who died in Lyon in 1944 and whose body was never found.

The coffins will contain Bloch’s medals and photographs, as well as letters from his wife to their children, said Suzette Bloch.

The Pantheon houses more than 80 national heroes, including writer Victor Hugo and French-American Resistance member Josephine Baker. — AFP