French President Emmanuel Macron has decided not to move the remains of the famous French poet Arthur Rimbaud to the Panthéon Mausoleum, despite a campaign to honor him as an artist and symbol of gay rights.
A petition last year, backed by a number of celebrities, as well as Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot, called for Rimbaud to be reunited with his beloved and fellow poet Paul Verlaine at the monument in central Paris.
In a letter sent by AFP to the descendants of Rimbaud, Macron said he would respect their wishes that the poet’s remains remain in his hometown of Charleville-Mézières, in eastern France, where he was buried in 1891.
‘I do not want to agree with the wishes of the deceased’s family. The remains of Arthur Rimbaud will not be moved, “Macron wrote to the family’s lawyer.
The Panthéon is a memorial complex for great national figures in French history from the world of politics, culture and science. Other notable literary characters laid to rest there include Voltaire, Rousseau, Dumas, Hugo and Malraux.
Only the president can decide to move remnants to the former church, whose large columns and dome roof were inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.
Macron used this authority in 2018 to give Simone Veil, a former French minister who survived the Holocaust, the honor of a final resting place at the monument.
Rimbaud and Verlaine are celebrated for their innovative poetry, but have also become known for their stormy relationship characterized by sex, drugs and problems with the law.
Rimbaud, who wrote classic writers such as The Drunken Boat and A Season in Hell, adopted drugs and alcohol as a stimulus for his prose and exploration of human consciousness.