Young Resistance Fighter Becomes Icon of France’s Center- Right. Particularly misleading, Mr. Noiriel said, is that the Ministry of National Education’s official document of instructions to schools omits the fact that Mr. Môquet was a Communist. Mr. Sarkozy canceled plans to visit Mr. Môquet’s high school in Paris on Monday where the letter would be read. His office blamed a scheduling conflict, but some teachers had threatened a protest. Government officials, veterans of World War II and of the Resistance, historians and teachers paid tribute to Mr. Môquet, reading the letter and introducing many students to a hero who was about their age when he died. But some teachers refused to read the letter, and some protesters accused Mr. Sarkozy of appropriating a hero of the Communists. Marie- George Buffet, the leader of the Communist Party, read the Môquet letter at a high school in the working- class Paris suburb of Seine- St.- Denis, but she called the government’s action a “solemn but deceitful homage,” emphasizing that class struggle was far from over. · A few years after his death, French leftists marched to honor the legacy of Guy Môquet, a 17-year-old Communist and a participant in the French Resistance.Guy Môquet’s childhood sweetheart, Odette Niles, now 8. Monday in the newspaper Le Parisien as saying, “Sarkozy, he is not my cup of tea,” adding, “A forced reading — that bothers me.”Other intellectuals, however, said the Môquet initiative was a small but important gesture toward helping to make France’s history relevant to students and infusing them with a spirit of national pride.“Our young people lack heroes,” said Bruno Racine, the director of the Bibliothèque Nationale who also leads a presidential commission on education. If Guy Môquet provides an opportunity to discuss the meaning of civic responsibility and sacrifice, then even if the initiative is controversial, it’s positive. Photo. At the request of President Nicolas Sarkozy, French students on Monday received copies of the farewell letter written by Mr. Môquet. Credit. Mychele Daniau/Agence France- Presse “If Zidane can be a hero, why not Guy Môquet,” Mr. Racine added, referring to the French soccer star Zinedine Zidane. Mr. Môquet, the son of a Communist, was only 1. Germans invaded France in 1. He distributed Communist leaflets for the Resistance and was arrested in 1. But because he identified himself as a Communist, he was held as a political detainee.
His execution was an act of Nazi revenge. After three Communists killed a German officer, the Nazis ordered the execution of 5. The Vichy government provided the names; Mr. Môquet was the youngest person on the list.
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