In Saint-Raphaël, the mayor inaugurates the stele in tribute to the victims of communism, a counter-demonstration to protest

"France has built monuments for its soldiers, the Resistance fighters, the deportees. For the victims of the Armenian Genocide, Nazism, slavery, and terrorism. Never before has it engraved in stone the memory of the victims of communism. Today, this silence ends."

On Saturday evening, in front of more than 400 people, the mayor of Saint-Raphaël, Frédéric Masquelier, inaugurated the much-discussed "monument in tribute to the one hundred million dead, victims of communist totalitarianism." A veil-raising ceremony followed by a wreath-laying ceremony by representatives of the Cité de l'Archange, as well as Fréjus, Puget-sur-Argens, the Department, and the Region. Also in attendance was Philippe Schrek, the RN MP for the ^8th constituency of Var.

Above all, this ceremony was preceded by a long speech from the chief magistrate who declared that "Nazism and communism are two sides of the same coin" and stressed that "honoring the victims of communism does not take away a page from other memories."

"Communism is inherently totalitarian"

For three-quarters of an hour, Frédéric Masquelier put totalitarian communist regimes on trial, as well as the ideology itself. "For decades, silence reigned. An organized silence in which crimes were minimized or even concealed. Preferring to excuse rather than condemn by cowardly turning a blind eye. This silence is still practiced today in our parliamentary assemblies, while symbols continue to be displayed in our processions and even on T-shirts. This gives communism a falsely virtuous image."

And the elected official asserted: "From Moscow to Beijing, from Phnom Penh to Cuba, the map of communism is one of mass graves. And it is not the excesses but rather the logic of a system and a way of thinking that crushes Man. Communism is intrinsically totalitarian. Repression is its vital mechanism. Without it, it would be overthrown."

A long column that resulted in a sentence: "The verdict, I would say, is guilty. Of having exterminated millions of innocent people. Guilty of having converted free men into slaves of terror. Guilty of having wanted to erase the traces of these crimes. Guilty, finally, of persisting even today under other masks to trample on freedoms." But also to an oath. That "of never accepting the return of this totalitarian ideology in any form whatsoever."

Counter-demonstration

This Saturday morning, during the municipal council meeting hastily convened to ratify the ''installation of a stele in memory of the victims of the totalitarianism of communism'', the opposition municipal councillor, Emmanuelle Cocusse (EELV - My city, my planet), planted the first banderillas: "This latest incident is only a further symptom of a vertical and top-down management style. Fundamentally, it does not seem to us to be a priority today to commit the finances of the municipality to such an approach, and this for two reasons: firstly, this is clearly an instrumentalization for ideological ends in this race to the bottom with the National Rally. You are definitely out of category in this political mess so as not to have a worrying RN candidate facing you in March 2026."

Later, at 6 p.m., in front of the town hall of the Cité de l'Archange, hundreds of activists and supporters raised flags and raised their voices. PCF, PS, EELV, LFI, Attac, Place publique… The left-wing movements responded to the call of many elected officials (including Ian Brossat, senator of Paris and national spokesperson for the French Communist Party, present in Saint-Raphaël) to condemn once again "this falsification of history and this political operation which plays into the hands of the RN" .

More locally speaking, and with a view to the 2026 municipal elections, an agreement of the "plural" left could emerge in Saint-Raphaël. Emmanuelle Cocusse (probable Green candidate) and Robert Laugier (the secretary of the Saint-Raphaël branch of the Socialist Party) are said to be working towards this goal.