In Saint-Raphaël, a stele installed by the LR mayor in tribute to the victims of "communist totalitarianism" outrages the PCF

The initiative of the Republican mayor of Saint-Raphaël (Var) does not please everyone, starting with the representatives of the Communist Party.

It's an imposing three-meter-wide statue facing the Mediterranean. A man with his back bent is pushing two walls apart. This stele, which will be inaugurated on Saturday, August 23 at 6 p.m. in Saint-Raphaël in the Var region , pays tribute to the victims of " communist totalitarianism ." And it's a first in France.

Frédéric Masquelier contemplates the new stele, erected right next to the monument dedicated to the heroes and martyrs of the resistance. It was his idea. " It should be seen as a symbol of the Berlin Wall and the fall of communism, but also the prison world of the gulag and all the atrocities committed during the Soviet era and under communist regimes ," explains the Les Républicains mayor of Saint-Raphaël.

On the statue, this inscription: " In homage to the 100 million dead of communist totalitarianism ." Forgotten victims, for Frédéric Masquelier, who "also have the right to their monument ." The mayor also wants to "put an end to a lie, a manipulation, where there is a tendency to soften, not to mention these atrocities that were committed in the name of communism ."

"We think it's good to have a perspective on these two great totalitarian doctrines of the 20th century: Nazism, which is reprehensible in all its aspects, and then you also have communism."

Frédéric Masquelier

to franceinfo

This speech has the left in a tizzy. Pierre Daspre, representative of the French Communist Party in Var, doesn't want to let this initiative pass. " There's a despicable confusion ," he says. For him, the mayor of Saint-Raphaël " is trying to mix up past deviations with what we propose in a communist society: abolishing all relationships of domination and exploitation of man by man ."

"The French communists were among those who fought Nazism most ardently in France."

Pierre Daspre, representative of the Communist Party of Var

to franceinfo

According to the communist activist, this stele represents a rewriting of history. But above all, it is a political maneuver by the elected LR: " I think he has other ideas in mind. What he is also looking for is to please a part of the electorate of the National Rally, of the extreme right, to win back votes, maintain confusion, and flatter an electorate to ensure his election next year ."

To denounce the installation of this monument, the entire left, from the socialists to the rebels, is calling for a demonstration on Saturday evening in front of the town hall, at the same time as the inauguration, a few hundred meters away, of the controversial stele.