Suzanne Lefort-Rouquette has her name posted on a Toulon establishment. She was honored yesterday, on the occasion of an emotional ceremony. Now the Rouvière versatile high school is called Rouvière-Suzanne Lefort-Rouquette. An approach that is part of the commemoration of 80e anniversary of the landing of Provence. The South Region “made the duty to remember a priority by changing the name of six high schools in the regional territory to recall the central role played by Provence in the history of the Liberation “.
“This name must be more than a tribute: it must be a source of inspiration for all those who cross the doors of the school, insisted the school principal, Nicolas Rougier. With this name, we register our commitment to a humanist education, at the service of social, demanding and republican diversity “.
For François de Canson, vice-president of the region, this change “ is a transmission. A breath. A act of living memory. Suzanne Lefort-Rouquette is a life given to others. A life of action, resistance, care, light “.
“The grandmother of all youth”
For this event, Jacques and Hugues Lefort, the grandsons of this Liberation heroine, made the trip from Bordeaux and Marseille. “”We could not have missed this moment “, They slip. Their cousin, Catherine was also present for this moment frozen in time.”It is a beautiful tribute to our family, we used to come on vacation in the house she had in Hyères “.
Who would have thought that years later, a high school in the neighboring commune would bear the name of their grandmother? “” Not anyway, Smiles Jacques. Suzanne Lefort-Rouquette has always been simply our grandmother. Today, she becomes, in a way, the grandmother of all the youth who will go through this establishment. It’s strong in symbol “.
-And to add, by addressing high school students present for the inauguration of the entrance plate with the new name of the establishment: “You will not have war, I hope, but you can now be heroes of everyday life taking example on the one who gave your name to your high school. Build your ideal and follow your intuition, it will guide you to make the right choices. (…) And remember that hard blows always arrive in a life and even on a single leg you can bounce back. And do beautiful things up to 101 years “. Very beautiful words, welcomed with stir by these students who worked on the resistance course (read below).
A life in the service of the fatherland
Suzanne Lefort-Rouquette (1912-2014) engages in the French army at 30 years old. First ambulance, she becomes section of section in the 25the Battalion of 9e colonial infantry division. Under his orders, no less than thirty ambulacer who come to the aid of the wounded in Corsica, on the island of Elba and to Cavalaire during the landing of Provence. Taking an active part in the war, she was seriously injured shortly and finished amputated with a leg.
She received the Legion of Honor and married in 1945 the captain of the shock battalion which she had met on the battlefields. He will later become General Jacques Lefort. After the war, Suzanne Lefort Rouquette leaves abroad, where she created dispensaries for the patients of leprosy.
In 1992, she wrote her memoirs and paid tribute to all these ambulacer who gave their lives on the battlefield.
The resistant died on August 17, 2014, in Hyères. 70 years after landing in Provence.
