"L'Affiche rouge" is a song from the album Les Chansons d'Aragon (1961) by Léo Ferré. Its lyrics are based on the poem "Strophes pour se souvenir" ("Strophes to remember") which Louis Aragon wrote in 1955 for the inauguration of a street in the 20th arrondissement in Paris, named "rue du Groupe Manouchian" in honor of 23 members of the FTP-MOI executed by the Nazis in the Mont-Valérien. The affair became known by the name of the Affiche rouge ("Red Poster") because the Germans plastered Paris in the spring of 1944 with thousands of red posters denouncing those executed as immigrants and Resistants.

The poem paraphrases Missak Manouchian's last letter to his wife.

Missak Manouchian, the Affiche Rouge and Manouchian's last letter

In mid-November 1943, the Vichy police arrested 23 members of the Communist Party-linked Resistance group, Francs-Tireurs et Partisans de la Main d'Oeuvre Immigrée (FTP-MOI). They were later known as the Manouchian Group after Armenian poet Missak Manouchian, who had commanded them in the three months before their capture. The group was part of a network of about 100 fighters, who committed acts of armed resistance in the Paris metropolitan region between March and November 1943. The group's membership included men of different backgrounds. 22 of them were Poles, five Italians, three Hungarians, two Armenians, three Spaniards, 1 French man and a Romanian woman; eleven members were Jewish.

All but one of the group's members were executed before a firing squad in Fort Mont-Valérien on 21 February 1944; the 23rd was executed later in Germany. As they were killed, many wrote or said "Vive la France".

thumb|right|The Affiche Rouge posterThe Affiche Rouge was a notorious propaganda poster, distributed by Vichy France and German authorities in the spring of 1944 in occupied Paris, to discredit the fighters. It featured ten men of the group, with nationality, surnames, photos and descriptions of their crimes. Manouchian is given a prominent place in the poster.

It was related that supporters wrote the graffiti Mort pour la France ( They died for France) across the posters and laid flowers beneath some of them.

thumb|Portrait of Manouchian kept in the German Federal Archives and reproduced on the [[Affiche Rouge.]]Missak's wife was Mélinée Manouchian, also Armenian. After the last arrest of Missak, she was sentenced to death in absentia, but was hidden and saved. After the war, she lived and worked in Yerevan in Armenia, then in the 1960s she returned to Paris. In 1954 she wrote her memoirs about Missak.

Missak's last letter to Mélinée is described by translator Mitch Abidor as "perhaps the most famous and beautiful of all final letters." It includes these lines:<blockquote>

My dear Melinée, my beloved little orphan,

In a few hours I will no longer be of this world. We are going to be executed today at 3:00. This is happening to me like an accident in my life; I don't believe it, but I nevertheless know that I will never see you again...

At the moment of death, I proclaim that I have no hatred for the German people, or for anyone at all; everyone will receive what he is due, as punishment and as reward. The German people, and all other people will leave in peace and brotherhood after the war, which will not last much longer. Happiness for all... I have one profound regret, and that's of not having made you happy; I would so much have liked to have a child with you, as you always wished. So I'd absolutely like you to marry after the war, and, for my happiness, to have a child and, to fulfill my last wish, marry someone who will make you happy. All my goods and all my affairs, I leave them to you and to my nephews. After the war you can request your right to a war pension as my wife, for I die as a regular soldier in the French army of liberation...

Today is sunny. It's in looking at the sun and the beauties of nature that I loved so much that I will say farewell to life and to all of you, my beloved wife, and my beloved friends. I forgive all those who did me evil, or who wanted to do so, with the exception of he who betrayed us to redeem his skin, and those who sold us out. I ardently kiss you, as well as your sister and all those who know me, near and far; I hold you all against my heart. Farewell. Your friend, your comrade, your husband.</blockquote>

The poem

thumb|right|[[:fr:Rue du Groupe-Manouchian|Rue du Groupe-Manouchian in the 20th arrondissement of Paris]]Louis Aragon was a French poet, a member of the Communist Party of France, and a Resistance fighter in the Vichy zone during the war. In 1955, Louis wrote a poem memorializing the Manouchian Group. The poem was first published in the Communist newspaper L’Humanité on 5 March 1955, under the title "Groupe Manouchain", and then in Aragon's collection, ', as "".

Rouben Melik and Paul Éluard also wrote poems in honour of the Manouchian Group.

In 1954, two passages in the 20th arrondissement were merged into a single , named for the group. Armenians and Communists in France (such as Albert Ouzoulias) had lobbied for this recognition, adopted by Communist councillors in the district; other names had been considered, such as "rue du groupe Manouchian-Boczov" before settling on highlighting Manouchian. Aragon wrote the poem for the street's inauguration on the following year, on 6 March, close to the eleventh anniversary of the execution.

Aragon's poem describes the blood red poster as "seem[ing] like a bloodstain" and describes the way the dark portrayals of the hirsuite foreigners in the poster was designed to evoke fear. The names of the martyrs are described as "difficult to pronounce", conveying their foreignness and perhaps also the Jewishness of some of them.</blockquote>

Another theme is "the proximity of these martyrs to their fellow citizens", as ordinary people: Aragon calls the 23 "foreigners/strangers, and yet our brothers".

Aragon's writing of the poem is fictionalised in the 2009 novel, Missak by Didier Daeninckx.

The song

In 1959 Léo Ferré set Aragon's poem to music and recorded it as "". It was the first track on his album ', released in 1961.

The success of the song helped make Ferré well-known and it became a staple of his live reportiore.

According to historian , the song played a major role in embedding Manouchian and his group in France's collective unconscious.

The song has been covered by many artists, including the Algerian singer (HK), whose album Les Déserteurs features classic chanson française with Middle Eastern arrangements, Bernard Lavilliers, and Leny Escudero in 1998. Singer Arthur Teboul said<blockquote>It's a song we've been singing for several years and it moves us every night. Because Aragon's words, which themselves echo the words of Missak Manouchian's letter to his partner before he died, are a message, a lesson in humanity: how to be noble of heart in all circumstances? How to remain upright, heroic, but heroic integrity... hese foreigners didn't even have French passports. Manouchian was repeatedly refused French nationality. They fought for an ideal. And then to say Missak Manouchian's goodbyes to his wife Mélinée, in front of their coffins. It's undoubtedly the most pressure-filled moment of our entire short career with Feu! Chatterton."</blockquote>

After the ceremony, a record was released containing their version and Ferré's.

References

Further reading

  • Poem in French and English
  • Song performed by Léo Ferré (Daily Motion)