Lecture by Pierre Allorant, President of the Association des amis de Jean Zay, "Jean Zay, Jeunesse de la République", chaired by Aurélien Lignereux, Professor of History at Sciences Po Grenoble-UGA.

On May 27, 2015, Jean Zay entered the Panthéon in a ceremony that also honored three great figures of the Resistance: Pierre Brossolette, Germaine Tillion and Geneviève Anthonioz de Gaulle.
And with good reason: Jean Zay, Protestant on his mother's side and Jewish on his father's, a Freemason, minister of the Front Populaire and executed by the Milice on June 20, 1944, lends himself to symbols and memorial policies. The publication of his Oeuvres complètes gives us a clearer picture of such a character, through his writings, which form an alert and informed chronicle of the crises and reinventions of the republican model from one world war to the next. Through his initiatives as radical Minister of National Education and Fine Arts (1936-1939), Jean Zay brought the inventive side of the model to life, with forward-looking achievements in the democratization of culture and higher education, and the development of sport.

Pierre Allorant's lecture, followed by a time for discussion, will showcase this work in all its topicality, and in all the humanity of its author.