L'Affiche rouge is a song on the album Léo Ferré chante Aragon (1959) by Léo Ferré

Léo Ferré

Léo Ferré was a Franco-Monegasque poet, composer, singer and musician.Born in Monaco, Ferré mixed love and melancholy with moral anarchy, lyricism with slang, rhyming verse with prose monologues...

. Its lyrics are based on the poem Strophes pour se souvenir (Strophes to help you remember) which Louis Aragon

Louis Aragon

Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...

 wrote in 1955 for the inauguration of a street in the 20th arrondissement in Paris, named "rue du Groupe Manouchian" in honor of 23 members of the FTP-MOI

FTP-MOI

The Francs-tireurs et partisans – main-d'œuvre immigrée were a sub-group of the Francs-tireurs et partisans organization, a component of the French Resistance. A wing composed mostly of foreigners, the MOI maintained an armed force to oppose the German occupation of France during World War II...

 executed by the Nazis in the Mont-Valérien. The affair became known by the name of the Affiche rouge

Affiche Rouge

The Affiche Rouge is a famous propaganda poster, distributed by Vichy French and German authorities in the spring of 1944 in occupied Paris, to discredit 23 French Resistance fighters, members of the Manouchian Group...

("Red Poster") because the Germans plastered Paris in the spring of 1944 with thousands of red posters denouncing the Resistants

French Resistance

The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...

.

The poem paraphrases Missak Manouchian

Missak Manouchian

Missak Manouchian was a French poet of Armenian birth, a militant communist in the MOI , and military commissioner of the FTP-MOI in the Paris region...

's last letter to his wife.

Poem

L'Affiche rouge Vous n'avez réclamé la gloire ni les larmes Ni l'orgue, ni la prière aux agonisants Onze ans déjà, que cela passe vite onze ans Vous vous étiez servi simplement de vos armes La mort n'éblouit pas les yeux des partisans. Vous aviez vos portraits sur les murs de nos villes Noirs de barbe et de nuit, hirsutes, menaçants L'affiche qui semblait une tache de sang Parce qu'à prononcer vos noms sont difficiles Y cherchait un effet de peur sur les passants. Nul ne semblait vous voir Français de préférence Les gens allaient sans yeux pour vous le jour durant Mais à l'heure du couvre-feu des doigts errants Avaient écrit sous vos photos " Morts pour la France" Et les mornes matins en étaient différents. Tout avait la couleur uniforme du givre À la fin février pour vos derniers moments Et c'est alors que l'un de vous dit calmement: "Bonheur à tous, bonheur à ceux qui vont survivre Je meurs sans haine en moi pour le peuple allemand." "Adieu la peine et le plaisir. Adieu les roses Adieu la vie. Adieu la lumière et le vent Marie-toi, sois heureuse et pense à moi souvent Toi qui vas demeurer dans la beauté des choses Quand tout sera fini plus tard en Erevan." "Un grand soleil d'hiver éclaire la colline Que la nature est belle et que le coeur me fend La justice viendra sur nos pas triomphants Ma Mélinée, ô mon amour, mon orpheline Et je te dis de vivre et d'avoir un enfant." Ils étaient vingt et trois quand les fusils fleurirent Vingt et trois qui donnaient le coeur avant le temps Vingt et trois étrangers et nos frères pourtant Vingt et trois amoureux de vivre à en mourir Vingt et trois qui criaient "la France!" en s'abattant.

The Red Poster You demanded neither glory nor tears Nor organ music, nor last rites Eleven years already, how quickly eleven years go by You made use simply of your weapons Death does not dazzle the eyes of partisans. You had your pictures on the walls of our cities Black with beard and night, hirsute, threatening The poster, that seemed like a bloodstain, Using your names that are hard to pronounce, Sought to sow fear in the passers-by. No one seemed to see you French by choice People went by all day without seeing you, But at curfew wandering fingers Wrote under your photos "Fallen for France" And it made the dismal mornings different. Everything had the unvarying colour of frost In late February for your last moments And that's when one of you said calmly: "Happiness to all, happiness to those who survive, I die with no hate in me for the German people. "Goodbye to pain, goodbye to pleasure. Farewell the roses, Farewell life, the light and the wind. Marry, be happy and think of me often You who will remain in the beauty of things When it's all over one day in Erevan. "A broad winter sun lights up the hill How nature is beautiful and how my heart breaks Justice will come on our triumphant footsteps, My Mélinée, o my love, my orphan girl, And I tell you to live and to have a child." There were twenty-three of them when the guns flowered Twenty-three who gave their hearts before it was time, Twenty-three foreigners and yet our brothers Twenty-three in love with life to the point of losing it Twenty-three who cried "France!" as they fell.

External links

• http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2006/2/21/11725/2996 Poem in French and English
• Song performed by Léo Ferré (Daily Motion)