I took Monday off and escaped to Orléans. I thought the city was stuck in its medieval history, so much so that the image of Joan of Arc symbolises Orléans in history books. I discovered something else.
I didn’t take a photo of Joan of Arc, by the way. I remember that in 2016, Emmanuel Macron, then just a presidential candidate, provoked controversy by taking up this figure, which he said should not be left to the far right, even going so far as to equate himself with her (2), the providential figure who would bring the French together. Between theories and facts… Nevertheless, I went to the cathedral and, overwhelmed by the atmosphere, I made a donation to light a candle for Joan of Arc. Unfortunately, It did not have any effect on the bad weather.
Finally, my attention was drawn to other testimonies of the past, which I was able to appreciate in an unusual calm; the calm of a provincial town, in the rain, on a Monday afternoon. I discovered a large table in a public garden. A work of art made up of paragraphs criticising and overhanging various titles representing components of French society who abdicate during the Occupation.
The chapter “Law” : ‘I knew that forgetfulness, ingratitude and hatred determine the existence of the majority of people’ still resonates today.
After reading the panels of an exhibition on the return of deportees around the old town hall, I saw General de Gaulle’s appeal of 18 June for the first time on a city street. A strategic railway junction for the Germans, Orléans paid a heavy price in relation to its population during the Second World War. That’s all I’ll know this time, during this unreflected visit, without the mind to question, to contextualise, to differentiate and to explore. What I will remember is the inspiration of the Resistance, which seems to sum up the identity of this city better than the Johannine celebrations.
Querying Chatgpt, he reminded me that in 2018, a young girl of Beninese-Polish origin was chosen to play the role of Joan of Arc in these annual festivities that arouse the fury of the far right. In 2025, the right-wing type mayor of Orléans went along with the easy way out by stigmatising migrants.
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