The Diplomat
The Spanish and French governments yesterday remembered the Spaniards who joined the French resistance during the Second World War and helped liberate Paris, which was then occupied by the forces of Nazi Germany.
During a visit to Paris, the Minister of the Presidency, Relations with Parliament and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, met with the French Government’s Minister Delegate in charge of the Memory of Former Combatants, Geneviève Darrieussecq. In this meeting, which was also attended by the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez, both parties discussed “the numerous memorial links that unite France and Spain”, according to a joint communiqué from the two governments.
“The shared memory of contemporary conflicts between our two countries is exemplified by the commitment and suffering of Spaniards who fled Spain for France after the Civil War and of those who joined the resistance against the occupier in France,” the statement said.
This year, on the anniversary of the liberation of Paris, “the fundamental role played in this battle by the soldiers of the ninth company of the Chad marching regiment, also called ‘La Nueve'”, adds the communiqué, referring to the first members of General Philippe Lecrerc’s Second Armoured Division who entered the insurgent city on 24 August 1944 and who were mostly Spaniards.
Darrieussecq and Bolaños stressed that this shared memory should “occupy a central place in the many links that unite France and Spain” and serve to “promote the common democratic values” of the two countries, especially within the European Union.
