During the pantheonization of Missak Manouchian, Arthur Teboul and his group Feu! Chatterton will cover “The Red Poster”, by Léo Ferré.
“You did not ask for glory, nor tears. Nor the organ, nor prayer to the dying”: Missak Manouchian enters the Pantheon, this Wednesday, February 21, 80 years to the day after her execution by the Nazis at the Mont Valerien. A tribute ceremony to this communist resistance fighter, orphan of the Armenian genocide, who will rest in the Parisian building alongside Mélinée his wife, also a resistance fighter under the Occupation, who died in 1989.
During this pantheonization ceremony, the Parisian group Feu! Chatterton, led by Arthur Teboul, will pay tribute to Missak Manouchian and the 22 other foreign resistance fighters, shot alongside him and honored this Wednesday, by performing the song L’annonce rouge, borrowed from Léo Ferré. Released in 1961, the title, composed by the latter, was initially performed by Monique Morelli. Its lyrics are directly inspired by a poem written by Louis Aragon in 1955, Stanzas to rememberitself inspired by the last words of Missak Manouchian to his wife, Mélinée, before her death.
In his song, which helped to make it popular in the 1960s, Léo Ferré evokes these resistance fighters of the FTP-MOI – Francs-tireurs and partisans-immigrant labor – who became martyrs, shot for having defended France against the Nazis and their atrocities. “There were 20 and 3 of them when the guns flourished. 20 and 3 who gave their hearts before time. 20 and 3 foreigners and our brothers nonetheless. 20 and 3 who loved living to death. 20 and 3 who shouted France in s “reducing”, sang Léo Ferré before Arthur Teboul and the many artists who took up The red poster.
“This song means a lot to us” – Fire! Chatterton
The choice of the Fire group! Chatterton to cover this song during the pantheonization of Missak Manouchian seemed logical. During their last tour, the Parisians closed each of their concerts with this title, before releasing a single and collector’s vinyl version. “On the occasion of the entry into the Pantheon of Missak Manouchian, the record company of Léo Ferré and his son Mathieu, offered us to publish a vinyl which would bring together our two versions of the Red Poster. The master’s and ours,” the group wrote on Instagram.
And to add: “This song, whose text by Louis Aragon takes up the words of Missak Manouchian in his last letter to his wife, Mélinée, just before being shot by the Nazis at Mont Valérien, means a lot to us. Those who came to see us on tour know this, we played it every evening, overwhelmed by the poet’s words and their disturbing resonance with our times. We therefore accepted this proposal with a hint of pride. Continue to keep the memory alive of these resistance fighters, of these immigrants who fought for France, and to appear on a Ferré record at the same time, that represents something.”