Pantheon: Resting Place of France's Great and Good

AFP | "La Convention Nationale" statue inside the Panthéon in Paris shown on September 15, 2015.
AFP | "La Convention Nationale" statue inside the Panthéon in Paris shown on September 15, 2015.
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Pantheon: Resting Place of France's Great and Good

AFP | "La Convention Nationale" statue inside the Panthéon in Paris shown on September 15, 2015.
AFP | "La Convention Nationale" statue inside the Panthéon in Paris shown on September 15, 2015.

Josephine Baker, the French-American dancer and singer who fought in the French Resistance and later battled racism, will become the first black woman to enter the Pantheon, France's most hallowed resting place, on Tuesday.

The domed mausoleum in the heart of Paris, modelled on the Pantheon in Rome, holds the remains of legendary figures in France's history from the worlds of politics, culture and science, AFP reported.

Seventy men including the philosophers Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau lie next to literary luminaries such as Alexandre Dumas, Emile Zola and Victor Hugo.

Only five women before Baker were allowed through its grand portals, which are crowned with an inscription proclaiming: "To great men from a grateful nation."

- Camus refusal -
The declaration has long been a red rag to feminists, who see it as deeply sexist and regularly protest to have it changed.

Simone Veil, a former French minister who survived the Holocaust and fought for abortion rights, was the last woman to be admitted in 2018.

She joined the scientist Marie Curie, Resistance heroes Genevieve de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Germaine Tillion and Sophie Berthelot, who was buried alongside her chemist husband Marcellin Berthelot.

The French president decides who has the right to be laid to rest there.

President Emmanuel Macron rejected a campaign earlier this year to rebury the French poet Arthur Rimbaud there, both to honour his work as a poet and his newfound fame as a gay icon.

However, descendants can overrule the president, as happened when the family of existentialist writer Albert Camus thwarted a bid in 2009 by then-president Nicolas Sarkozy to move his remains to the Pantheon.

Veil's admission prompted a sharp rise in visitors to 860,000 a year, but a far cry from the millions who flock to the Eiffel Tower.



German Police to Start New Search in Portugal Near Where Madeleine McCann Disappeared in 2007

German police said in June 2020 that McCann was assumed dead. (AFP)
German police said in June 2020 that McCann was assumed dead. (AFP)
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German Police to Start New Search in Portugal Near Where Madeleine McCann Disappeared in 2007

German police said in June 2020 that McCann was assumed dead. (AFP)
German police said in June 2020 that McCann was assumed dead. (AFP)

German police investigating the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann are to carry out fresh searches near the Portuguese holiday resort she was last seen 18 years ago, UK police said on Monday. 

The 3-year-old disappeared from her bed while on vacation with her family in the Praia da Luz resort, in southern Portugal, on May 3, 2007. She has not been seen since. 

The main suspect in the case is Christian Brueckner, who is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005. 

He is under investigation on suspicion of murder in the McCann case but hasn’t been charged. He spent many years in Portugal, including in Praia da Luz, around the time of the child's disappearance. Brueckner has denied any involvement in her disappearance. 

“We are aware of the searches being carried by the BKA (German federal police) in Portugal as part of their investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann," the Metropolitan Police, in London, said in a statement. 

“The Metropolitan Police Service is not present at the search, we will support our international colleagues where necessary," it added, without giving more details. 

The McCann case received worldwide interest for several years, with reports of sightings of her stretching as far away as Australia as well as books and television documentaries about her disappearance. 

Investigators in the UK, Portugal and Germany are still piecing together what happened on the night she disappeared. She was in the same room as her brother and sister — 2-year-old twins — while their parents, Kate and Gerry, had dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant. 

Madeleine's family marked the 18th anniversary of her disappearance last month, and expressed their determination to keep searching.