Guided tour of the Mémorial du Mont-Valérien

The Fort Mont-Valérien was the main site for executions by the German army on French soil during World War II. The men were assassinated for being resistants, hostages, Jews or communists.

Their memories endure to testify to our history and have made this place a major national memorial. After the war, the site was chosen by General de Gaulle as part of a tribute to those who died for France between 1939 and 1945. He inaugurated the Mémorial de la France Combattante (Memorial to Fighting France) on 18 June 1960.

Within the premises, the ‘Path of Remembrance’ allows us to walk in the footsteps of men who were about to be executed - from the chapel, on the walls of which some of the condemned left graffiti, to the clearing where they were shot dead. Mont-Valérien enables us to understand more vividly what German repression and French collaboration meant, and what the people ‘who loved life to death’ went through