The bust of French Resistance fighter and French national hero, Missak Manouchian, will be installed in one of the parks in central Yerevan that bears his name.

The Yerevan City Council approved the decision on March 12.

Missak Manouchian, a French-Armenian poet, led a small group of foreign Resistance fighters, which included many Jews, against the Nazi occupation, carrying out attacks on Nazi forces and acts of sabotage in Nazi-occupied France in 1943.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in 2023 that Manouchian “embodies the universal values” of France and “carries a part of our greatness.”

The WWII hero was executed by the Nazis on February 21, 1944, a year after being arrested. 

Missak Manouchian was pantheonized in France in 2024. 

Manouchian’s wife Mélinée was also a resistance fighter. 

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and French President Emmanuel Macron attended the ceremony in 2024 when Manouchian was interred in the mausoleum housing France’s national heroes.