France Battles Over Whether to Cancel or Celebrate Napoleon
President Emmanuel Macron will lay a wreath on the emperor’s tomb on the 200th anniversary of his death, stepping into a national debate over the legacy of Napoleon.
The tomb of late French Emperor Napoleon I, under the dome of Les Invalides, a former military hospital, in Paris.Credit.Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse Getty Images
May 5, 2021, 12:15 a.m. ET
PARIS Jacques Chirac couldn’t stand him. Nicolas Sarkozy kept his distance. François Hollande shunned him. But on the 200th anniversary this week of Napoleon Bonaparte’s death, Emmanuel Macron has chosen to do what most recent presidents of France have avoided: honor the man who in 1799 destroyed the nascent French Republic in a putsch.