Overview
- A ceremony on Tuesday evening, June 23, 2026, saw two symbolic empty coffins representing Marc Bloch and his wife Simonne carried into the Panthéon while President Emmanuel Macron delivered an address.
- The Bloch family asked that representatives of the far‑right Rassemblement National not attend and said the party misuses Marc Bloch’s name; RN leader Jordan Bardella said he would respect the request but some right‑wing figures still planned to appear.
- Macron has now presided over six Panthéon inductions since 2018, and commentators say he is using these ceremonies as a way to shape his legacy and send political signals ahead of the 2027 campaign.
- Marc Bloch was a leading medievalist and co‑founder of the École des Annales who joined the Résistance, was arrested and executed by the Gestapo in June 1944, and whose posthumous book L'Étrange défaite blamed France’s 1940 collapse on elite and institutional failure.
- Coverage differs in tone with outlets emphasizing ritual and presidential motive on one hand and the family’s long resistance to politicized appropriations on the other, a divide that highlights broader tensions over how France remembers the war and resists right‑wing claims on national icons.