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Excerpts of Address by the Secretary of State for Veterans, Hamlaoui Mékachera

Paris, July 20 2003

We have gathered for a very special national ceremony. Special, ofcourse, because of the intense emotion it always generates, which has no parallel. But the commemoration is special too because it requires us, individually and collectively, to engage in profound remembrance and reflection about our country, our past, and ourselves. And because it requires us all to mobilize for the present and be vigilant for the future.

At this very moment, everywhere in France, and more especially here, a few yards from the former Vélodrome d’Hiver, we remember the anti-Semitic persecution in France during World War II.

To remember is to understand the pain of the persecuted, be with their community in its pain and bear witness to the nation’s pain. (...) The nation’s pain is in remembering that Frenchmen, and the French State, were “complicit in the criminal madness of the occupying power,” as President Jacques Chirac said in 1995, words that still resonate and will continue to resonate for a long time to come—that is how true they are and how necessary they were. It is the pain of all human beings in the face of the unique tragedy of the Shoah which concerns and summons all people, whatever their history, religion or beliefs. (...)

At the heart of our history is the immeasurable madness of the Shoah. At the heart of our future is the urgent duty to make a repetition of such crimes absolutely impossible. (...)

Our common vigilance must not waver in opposition to racist and anti-Semitic acts, to verbal and sometimes physical attacks, which I know, have not ceased, and which create a climate of unease, even fear. Nothing can justify them. Passions, and even legitimate emotions provoked by current events, must not justify sectarianism and scandalous distortion. There is no place in France for intolerance.

Taking part in this ceremony is an honor, a great honor for me. I am also conscious of a heavy sense of responsibility. For the task is nothing less than to keep alive and convey the memory of the indescribable suffering of an entire community, to build the memory of France and also defend our national cohesion. Those are the stakes. And with them, the future of France, our common future./.