"Strophes pour se souvenir, poème de Louis Aragon" has been shared to the blog from the French reading exercises section of the learning library where you can find a large selection of interactive texts to help you with your reading skills.
On February 21st 1944, 23 members of the French Resistance were executed by the German occupation army. Before his execution, Missak Manouchian, one of the resistants, wrote a poignant letter to his beloved wife Mélinée. This tragic episode and its love letter inspired French poet Aragon one of his heart-wrenching poems “Strophes pour se souvenir”, celebrating the lives of these 23 heroes. In 1961, this poem was turned into a moving song, “L’Affiche rouge”, by French singer Léo Ferré, song then covered beautifully by Feu! Chatterton during the 2024 ceremony celebrating the heroes’ entry to the Pantheon.
After listening to the song, scroll down for the transcript in our bilingual reader, where you can click any French phrase for the English translation and related grammar lessons.
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For over ten years now, Céline has been teaching French and Italian to students of all ages and abilities in the UK. This French native speaker comes from Brittany, and likes crafts, Breton dance (of course!) and Breton music which she actually played for four years. She also has a fondness for European cinema and British History.
Aurélie is our resident French Expert. She has created most of the wonderful content you see on the site and is usually the person answering your tricky help questions. She comes from a small village near Chartres in Central France, country of cereal fields and not much else. She left (in a hurry) to study English at the world-famous Sorbonne in Paris, before leaving France in 2007 to experience the “London lifestyle” - and never looked back! She's worked as a professional French teacher, translator and linguist in the UK since. She loves to share her love of languages and is a self-professed cinema and literature geek!