Monument national du souvenir francais

Jean Pierre Jean, typographer and future Member of Parliament, created the first Souvenir Français committee in 1907 in the small village of Vallières, under the name "Comité Messin du Souvenir Français". He was behind the subscription and agreement of the 13 surrounding communes on the right bank of the 1870 battlefields to erect this monument in honor of the soldiers who died for France. After difficult negotiations with the Prussian authorities, the monument, the work of sculptor Emmanuel Hannaux, was inaugurated on October 4, 1908 in front of a crowd of 120,000. For the first time since the 1870 conflict, French flags were flown over the annexed Moselle region.