In Paris suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine stands a monument to the great son of Armenian people, national hero of France Missak Manouchian.

When Nazis occupied Paris a guerrilla unit was led by the fearless Missak Manuchian as part of French resistance movement. He was born in Western Armenia, and the members of his family became victims of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Missak survived just by miracle and reached France via Lebanon. During the World War II, along with his troops he committed subversive activities against Nazi occupants in Paris. His resistance group included people of different nationalities: Russians, Jews, Poles, Hungarians, Spaniards, Italians and others. The enemies were terribly frightened by the actions of the guerrilla unit, and on the eve of victory in 1944 Manuchian and his companions were captured, exposed to severe torture and executed. At the end of the World War II the liberated country paid tribute to the exploits of the guerrillas and Manuchian became a national hero of France Republic.
In 1976 the Soviet Committee of War Veterans appealed to Ara Harutyunyan with a request to create a monument to Manouchian, a “Soldier of Freedom” as they called him. The monument of dark red tuff now stands at the military cemetery in Paris suburb of Ivry.
In 1978 the government of France and the Soviet Union organized the opening ceremony of the monument together with the sculptor A.Harutyunyan and his wife Julia, the Soviet Ambassador in France, the mayor of Paris and the district mayor of Ivry. The impressive bronze head of the hero stands out the tuff stele, which bears the inscription: “Glory to those who died for France to live”. This is the way how common historical memory was captured by means of art.

In 2014 the incumbent President of France Francois Hollande paid an official visit to Armenia. He dedicated his speech to the unforgotten exploit of Missak Manuchian immortalized by Ara Harutyunyan.

The monument can be found at: Cimetiere d’Ivry, avenue de Verdin, 30, Ivry-sur-Seine, Paris, France.