Overview

• A gendarmerie patrol discovered the destroyed stele in Montigny-Lengrain on Sunday and characterized the damage as deliberate.
• The commemorative plaque that had been fixed to the monument was missing, according to the Aisne gendarmerie.
• A gendarmerie inquiry has been opened under the authority of the Soissons public prosecutor.
• Prefect Fanny Anor condemned the act as betraying the deportees’ memory and staining republican values.
• Inaugurated in summer 2024, the stele honors deportees from convoy 7909 from Compiègne to Dachau in July 1944, and officials posted before-and-after photos while vowing not to cede to those who seek to divide or deny shared history.