The bust of French Resistance fighter and national hero Missak Manouchian will be installed in a park in downtown Yerevan that bears his name.
The Yerevan City Council approved the decision on March 12. Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan said the bust was selected through a competitive process and will be installed in the park named after Manouchian.
Missak Manouchian, a French-Armenian poet and resistance leader, led a small group of foreign Resistance fighters, many of them Jews, against the Nazi occupation, carrying out attacks on Nazi forces and acts of sabotage in Nazi-occupied France in 1943.
French President Emmanuel Macron said in 2023 that Manouchian “embodies the universal values” of France and “carries a part of our greatness.”
The World War II hero was executed by the Nazis on February 21, 1944, a year after being arrested.
In 2024, Manouchian was interred in the Panthéon in Paris, becoming the first person of Armenian origin to enter the mausoleum dedicated to France’s national heroes.
Manouchian’s wife, Mélinée, was also a resistance fighter. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and French President Emmanuel Macron attended the 2024 ceremony honoring Manouchian at the Panthéon.
