Overview
- An administrative judge in Nancy suspended the Verdun mayor’s ban, ruling the planned church service was not inherently likely to disturb public order.
- The mass, organized by the pro-Pétain ADMP with written authorization from the archbishop of Metz, was held at Saint-Jean-Baptiste as a private service for members.
- About twenty attendees were inside the church while roughly one hundred demonstrators, including local officials, protested peacefully outside under police supervision.
- After the service, an ADMP member told reporters Pétain was “the first resistant of France,” prompting the Meuse prefect Xavier Delarue to announce a legal complaint for revisionist remarks.
- Local authorities and Jewish organizations condemned the homage as an attempt to rehabilitate a Vichy leader convicted and stripped of national dignity in 1945.