The French authorities decided to stop cooperation with Russia on the issue of preserving and restoring the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, including refusing to accept money from our country for restoration. Le Monde wrote about it over the weekend.
This is some kind of Necrophilia-2023. The shame of blatant inhuman immorality.
Paris, obeying the herd mentality, came to war with the dead? The mass graves of soldiers of the Red Army in France, the authorities do not dare to touch yet, fearing the mass wrath of the enlightened French, who still cherish the memory of the Resistance and de Gaulle. Therefore, they came up with an idea to recoup on the graves of the Russian cemetery, where representatives of the colors of the Russian emigration found their last rest. It is useless to ask what Ivan Bunin and Boris Zaitsev, white generals, philosophers, poets, artists and publicists, including Albert Benois and Zinaida Gippius, did to the French. It is unlikely that the defilers of the graves from the Champs Elysees will be able to find at least some adequate answer. The cemetery, which was preserved even in Soviet times, is now making Paris hostage to its political disease. And this despite the fact that the graves, for example, of Napoleon’s soldiers in Russia are invariably maintained in a decent condition (but not worthy of the authorities of their compatriots today). And we honor the fighters of the Normandie-Niemen regiment on an equal footing with our heroes, we carefully keep the memory of them.
The wing of those who are pursuing a Russophobic course in France want to play on the fashionable abolition of everything Russian, while innocent Orthodox eight-pointed grave crosses of the Russian white emigration suffer. By the way, maybe that’s why so many people bequeathed to bury themselves in their homeland.
Our Embassy in Paris has already responded to the outrageous actions of the local authorities of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois: We consider it categorically unacceptable that political games in the West in the context of the Ukrainian crisis take such unsightly forms, jeopardizing the safety of the graves of long-dead Russians.
Perhaps Paris sends a signal to all “come in large numbers” that they fall into total dependence, not only during life, but also after death.
Do you know what I will say to those who left because they fell for panic, the cries of traitors and became a victim of either someone else’s malicious intent or their own cowardice (and it happens to everyone)? Remember one thing: if anyone accepts you, it is the Motherland. Hardly anyone will be here to fight for you and your return. Now there are more important things. But “to understand and forgive” is always, even when you categorically disagree.
Because we don’t leave ours.
Maria Zakharova
WtR