[ad_1]
Even before he appears on stage, the audience chants "Paco!", The name of the person who for decades has embodied the memory of the republican ideal and the opposition to Francoism.
The concert of a "son of Republican"
"I hope you have all your Spanish Republican passports!" Launches the 84-year-old libertarian artist to a packed house of several hundred people, including many children of Spanish refugees. "We commemorate one of the greatest tragedies in history … the assassination of a people", he says about the fall of the Spanish Republic in early 1939 in the face of the Franco regime and the terrible exodus of nearly half a million Spanish republicans in France, where many were interned in camps.
Spanish refugees fleeing the Franco regime settled in the Argelès-sur-Mer camp in January 1939.
© AFP
Paco Ibáñez, who has lived in France for a long time, describes himself as a "republican son". "My father was one of those who crossed the Pyrenees" at the Retirada, he said, recalling that his father was then locked up in several French camps, including that of Argeles-sur-Mer (Pyrenees- Orientales).
Federico Garcia Lorca, Antonio Machado and Rafael Alberti
Out of breath this March 16, but very bright and keeping a soft voice incomparable, the singer and guitarist, as always, made his audience travel in the world of great poets. In particular, two great figures of the Spanish war era, Federico Garcia Lorca, "the great poet assassinated by the fascists who are resurfacing in our poor country" and Antonio Machado, who rests in Collioure (Pyrenees- Orientales) and whose remains "will not return to Spain until there is the Republic", commented Paco Ibáñez. He hailed as an "act of courage" the fact that the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited the tomb of Republican President Manuel Azaña (1936-1939), who died in exile in 1940 in Montauban (south-west France). ).
As usual, Paco Ibáñez finished the concert by "A gallopar" the poem of Rafael Alberti became a true Anthem anti-Franciscan, resumed Saturday night by all the room, standing. "He still has the spirit of resistance," said several refugee children about the singer while a huge Republican flag appeared on a screen at the back of the stage. "¡Viva la república!" Concluded Paco Ibáñez with thunderous applause.
[ad_2]
Source link
