Macron praises Captains of April. “Today’s Europe owes much to his courage”

On the eve of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the 25th of April, Emmanuel Macron decided to join “our friends in Portugal, the Portuguese in France and all our compatriots of Portuguese origin” to mark the date. In a video released on his social networks, the French president highlights the role of the Portuguese revolution – “so important for democracy in Europe.” With special emphasis on the Captains of April who “expressed the hope of an entire people in peace and democracy. They weren’t even thirty years old and they were already heroes. Today’s Europe owes a lot to their courage.”

In the message, Macron does not forget the role that France played during the Estado Novo as a welcome land for “hundreds of thousands of Portuguese men and women in the 50s and 60s, exiled by poverty, the systematic violation of their rights, arbitrary political repression and cruel, and for refusing to participate in this system and these unjust wars.”

And remember how Grândola itself, Vila Morena, the song that served as a password for the revolution, was recorded by Zeca Afonso in France, in 1971, at Château d’Hérouville, since he was in exile in France. But he wasn’t the only one. “I think of Mário Soares, Álvaro Cunhal and Emídio Guerreiro, who traveled to Lisbon and Porto in the days following the revolution, coming from France, where they had taken refuge”, guarantees Macron.

From the past to the present, the French president remembers how the friendship between France and Portugal is achieved “by the millions of men and women whose families live between Portugal and France.” And that “together, we prepare the future of our European Union. Side by side, we are and will be present to defend the causes that will determine the future of the world.”

A Franco-Portuguese friendship that materializes in the same “vision of a free, democratic and fair world.”

And he concludes: “We owe it to the memory of the Captains of April and to the Portuguese people who, fifty years ago, stood up against injustice and poverty and won the admiration of France, Europe and the world with a red carnation in their hand. April 25th, always! Long live Portugal!