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Panthéon 2015

Winners of the video contest *

Present at the Pantheon on 27 May 2015 at the invitation of the head of State, the pupils showed their commitment to the values of the Resistance. © Exclusive report www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr

Click on this image for the clip lyrics

 

 

"Being a student in Brossolette"*

 

On this 27 May 2015, the atmosphere is cheerful in the bus: for the twenty-eight school children from the Pierre Brossolette elementary school in Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy the moment is magical. In a few moments, at the invitation of the head of State, these young winners of the Pantheon 2015 competition will attend the ceremony in honour of Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Germaine Tillion, Jean Zay, and Pierre Brossolette.

 

Indeed the Pantheon 2015 competition was in fact organised to coincide with the admittance of these four great personalities of the Resistance into the Pantheon. Participants were asked to make a video on one of them and it was only natural that the students from Pierre Brossolette School chose to devote their creation to the hero who gave his name to their school.

 

So they worked on a video clip to the music of Les marionnettes by singer Christophe: "Me, I'm a Brossolette pupil" (see the lyrics of the clip).

 

A citizen project?

This work is the opportunity to reflect on the Republican motto "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", a very concrete form of civic education, which starts with simple and obvious gestures, but which bear civic values, such as the fact of standing up when the teacher enters the classroom. As put by Jacqueline Bacha, the school headmistress: 'You don't read up on civic education, you live it'. Because, outside the family, school is the first social venue, the first place of life. It is a meeting place, a shared space where pupils learn to live in the community.

 

"This living together requires rules so that we can work together" Jacqueline Bacha went on to say and this enables us to explain even to the youngest one what the Republic is: learn the Marseillaise, or such concepts as freedom of thought and freedom of expression, equality of all before these common rules of living together but also the duties that ensue, fraternity through solidarity by everyone as when children and their teachers support the actions of the Le Bleuet de France charity.

 

A memorial project

 

This work enables you to become familiar with the founding texts of our Republic and to understand the reasons that prompted such heroes as Pierre Brossolette to fight to defend it. "At school, every moment is a holiday thanks to all these names that you bore" sing the students in the clip: by dedicating their work to Pierre Brossolette, the Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy primary school children also came to be interested in the life of a famous character who marked the history of contemporary France and to whom we owe much of the freedom we currently enjoy.

 

A pedagogical project

 

While the clip "I'm a Brossolette pupil" is a citizen and memorial project it is also a pedagogical project. Learning the language, history, singing, movement, the ability to share and project themselves forward and be capable of carrying out a project collectively and reflecting on 'the job of being a pupil': many skills are called on here.

 

Moreover, to help them implement their creation and to familiarise them with the new technologies, the Canope de Meurthe-et-Moselle workshop in Nancy made ten touch-screen tablets available to pupils.

 

On this 27 May, the atmosphere was intense in the Place du Panthéon: for the twenty-eight school children from the Pierre Brossolette elementary school in Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, the moment was solemn. In the end, this is what being a "Brossolette pupil" is all about: keeping alive the legacy of those men and women who defended our freedom and tapping into their actions as a source of inspiration.

 

After just arriving that same morning by train, the 4th year pupils from the     Jean Zay de Cenon secondary school (33)  (link is external)*  are enthusiastic upon their arrival at the Panthéon. 

 

Honoured and impressed with the reception awaiting them, they measure the importance of the moment. The admission of four great figures of the Resistance to the Pantheon: Pierre Brossolette, Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Germaine Tillion and Jean Zay indeed form a symbolic event to which they are proud to be associated (their video was aired on giant screens during the ceremony).

 

The work done in the classroom with the help of their teachers was the opportunity for them to strengthen ties and have more confidence in their abilities. Engaged in a multidisciplinary project, Jean Zay students chose to draw the portrait of Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz as part of a music video made with the help of 6th year students taking the cinema option at Montesquieu high school in Bordeaux. The clip alternates between images showing the path taken by their heroine in World War II to her action in the ATD Quart Monde association and includes the students performing a rap on several memorial sites.

 

Encouraged by their success, the Jean Zay students said how much they admired Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz whose life is an example for the youth of today: "She's a model for us," they said spontaneously when asked about the meaning of their work. One student said "she was arrested and deported but she didn't stop when she was released, she kept writing and helping the poor, she set up an association; she did a lot for France." The teaching staff also expressed satisfaction at the end of a long process that was an opportunity to take students to such memorial sites as the Souge camp in Martignas or the Jean Moulin Museum in Bordeaux and culminating in Paris on 27 May with the admission of the four great figures of the Resistance to the Pantheon.

 

Ministry of Defence - SGA/DMPA/SDMAE/BAPI - Photos : ©Cyril Caudron - Exclusive report www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr