Overview
- The Nancy administrative court suspended the mayor’s ban on Friday, citing freedom of worship and finding the planned rite not inherently likely to disrupt public order.
- The mass took place Saturday at Verdun’s Saint-Jean-Baptiste church as a closed service for ADMP members, with roughly twenty attendees under police oversight.
- About a hundred demonstrators gathered outside, with officers keeping groups apart as the protest remained calm.
- After an ADMP figure asserted that Pétain was “the first resistant of France,” Prefect Xavier Delarue said he would file a complaint over what he called clearly revisionist remarks.
- Local officials and community leaders denounced the homage, with Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez condemning attempts to rehabilitate a leader associated with the Vichy collaboration.