France says goodbye to Resistance hero Hubert Germain on Armistice Day

Hubert Germain, the last surviving member of the Order of the Liberation who died last month, will be buried with a Cross of Lorraine, symbol of the Resistance, carved from the wood of Notre-Dame Cathedral as France commemorates Armistice Day.

Emmanuel Macron pays homage at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with the flag-draped coffin of Hubert Germain, during a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on November 11, 2021. © AFP/Ludovic Marin

"Would we be here without Hubert Germain?" asked French president Emmanuel Macron, listing the names of several of the 1,038 members of the Order of the Liberation who "followed General de Gaulle in this daring adventure" in 1940.

"Hubert Germain will join his brothers in arms and with them all those who have risen up so that France may live," he added in a speech given under the Arc de Triomphe during the ceremony to commemorate the Armistice of 11 November 1918, which marked the end of World War I.

Le cercueil d'Hubert Germain quitte l'Arc de Triomphe pic.twitter.com/l6rJqwiN5j

— BFMTV (@BFMTV) November 11, 2021

Hubert Germain, who was the last surviving the Resistance fighter honoured by late Free France leader Charles de Gaulle, died aged 101 in October.

His coffin draped in the French flag was carried up the Champs-Elysees on an armoured vehicle to the Arc de Triomphe, where Macron and visiting American Vice President Kamala Harris paid their respects.

The flag draped coffin of Hubert Germain -the last surviving Liberation companion- is escorted up the Champs Elysees Avenue during a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on November 11, 2021. © AFP/François Mori

Germain, the son of a general in France's colonial army, was in his late teens when he fled to Britain after France's capitulation where he joined up with de Gaulle who was organising resistance to the German occupation.

• France's last surviving WWII Resistance hero dies aged 101

He went on to fight in key battles at Bir-Hakeim in Libya, at El Alamein in Egypt and in Tunisia, as well as in the invasion of German-occupied France in 1944 which liberated the country.

Hubert Germain, member of the Order of the Liberation, pictured in November 2020 in Paris. © AFP/Michel Euler

The Paris-born fighter was one of 1,038 people decorated with the Order of the Liberation for their heroism by de Gaulle, who would go on to become president of France and is the founder of the current constitution.

Buried at Mont-Valérien memorial

Germain, who became an MP and minister, will be buried later Thursday in a special crypt reserved for Resistance fighters at Mont Valerien, a former fortress west of Paris where German troops used to execute opponents.

In June 1960, when he inaugurated the Mont-Valérien memorial in Suresnes (near Paris), Charles de Gaulle had expressed the wish that the crypt's vault No. 9 would be reserved for the last member of the Order of the Liberation, which he had created to "reward persons or military and civilian communities who have distinguished themselves in the work of liberating France and its empire".

Macron will lay a Cross of Lorraine, symbol of the Resistance, fashioned out of wood from Notre-Dame cathedral on his coffin, in accordance with Germain's wishes.

(with newswires)