Controversial Mass Honoring Marshal Pétain in Verdun Sparks Legal Investigation

On November 15, 2025, a mass honoring Marshal Philippe Pétain was held at the Saint-Jean-Baptiste church in Verdun, organized by Jacques Boncompain, president of the Association for the Defense of the Memory of Marshal Pétain (ADMP). This event, intended to commemorate Pétain’s legacy, attracted about twenty supporters but faced significant opposition, including a counter-protest of around one hundred people led by Verdun’s mayor, Samuel Hazard.

Boncompain, in his eighties, has led the ADMP since 1951, actively working to rehabilitate Pétain’s image despite the marshal’s controversial role as head of the Vichy regime during World War II, which collaborated with Nazi Germany. During the mass, Boncompain controversially praised Pétain as “the first resistant of France” and claimed that the marshal saved at least 700,000 Jews, a revisionist narrative sharply at odds with historical records of Vichy France’s collaboration in the deportation and extermination of Jews.

These statements have prompted a legal investigation into the ADMP and Boncompain, who now faces charges of denial of crimes against humanity. The investigation is sparked by Boncompain's revisionist claims that contradict established history and have been viewed as attempts to distort the documented atrocities associated with the Vichy regime.

The event and its fallout highlight ongoing tensions in France over how to remember and interpret Pétain’s complex and deeply controversial legacy. The ADMP’s continued efforts to promote a narrative casting Pétain as a protector rather than a collaborator have provoked strong reactions from both the public and legal authorities, emphasizing the sensitivity of historical memory related to World War II in contemporary France.