Vel d’Hiv: Panot (LFI) justifies his tweet and denies having compared Macron to Pétain

July 19, 2022

The president of the LFI group in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, criticized for a tweet accusing Emmanuel Macron in particular of having “honoured Pétain” in 2018, denied on Monday having compared the head of state to the head of government. of the Vichy regime.

“Where do you see me comparing Macron and Pétain? (…) Of course not Emmanuel Macron is not Philippe Pétain,” Mathilde Panot told franceinfo.

On Saturday, she tweeted: “80 years ago, the collaborationists of the Vichy regime organized the Vel d’Hiv roundup. Do not forget these crimes, today more than ever, with a President of the Republic who makes honor to Pétain and 89 RN deputies”.

This tweet aroused the indignation of several members of the majority, but also of members of the Nupes and the RN.

“No there is no deletion of the tweet!” she claimed, asking “what is factually wrong in what I wrote?”.

“What I wanted to say with this tweet is that not only are there 89 RN deputies in the National Assembly, which (…) makes us say that we must always continue the fight against extreme right, racist and anti-Semitic theories and ideas, but also that it is not admissible to pay homage to Pétain”.

She refers to the words of Mr. Macron who, in 2018, had described Pétain as a “great soldier” during the First World War, even if he then “led disastrous choices”.

Mathilde Panot also underlined that “just yesterday, (…) a deputy of the majority explains to us that there would be two Pétain”.

Renaissance MP Ludovic Mendes had pointed out on BFMTV on Sunday that “there are two Pétain”, namely the one considered a military hero of the Battle of Verdun in 1916, then the head of the collaborationist and anti-Semitic government from 1940 to 1944.

“No, there is no reason to pay tribute to him, to pay him compliments (…) There are not two Pétains, there is only one Pétain and he is an anti-Semite” , she hammered.

“There is a time for everything and because these events are a wound in our history, they suppose that on that day, we refrain from any formula that can lead to controversy, and therefore I indeed regret that these words have were pronounced that day”, lamented on Europe 1 the boss of the PS OLivier Faure.

For Ms. Panot, those who criticize her tweet “did not read it well”. “The tweet is a way of paying homage to these people who died because they were Jewish, and a way of sounding the alarm about the political moment we are living in.”

The deputy said she was “happy to see” that Mr. Macron, during the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Vel d’Hiv Roundup on Sunday, replied “to Eric Zemmour to remind that not only Philippe Pétain did not never wanted to save Jews, but much more than that, he is responsible for the death of 13,000 people because they are Jews”.