Observatoire des droits humains (anglais seulement)

Josephine Baker: what it means to enter France's hallowed Panthéon

(Version anglaise seulement)

par Laura O'Brien, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History, Northumbria University, Newcastle

Josephine Baker – performer, Resistance hero, and civil rights activist – is the first woman of colour to enter the Panthéon in Paris, where her remains will be interred. She is is the latest hero of the French Republic to be “Panthéonised”. But what does it mean to enter into the “temple of the nation”, and how does this process work?

Panthéonisation, as the process is known, has its origins in the French Revolution. In 1791, the revolutionary National Assembly voted to…

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