Seeing the face of Paul Bocuse on the pediment of the Pantheon, next to those of Voltaire or Victor Hugo: the image is surprising. However, it has been circulating in Lyon since the announcement of a possible pantheonization of the chef.
The idea resurfaced after the entry of resistance historian Marc Bloch into the Republican temple and placed French gastronomy at the heart of memorial issues. Because behind this possible pantheonization of Paul Bocuse lies both the homage to a man and a certain vision of France.
Pantheonization of Paul Bocuse: the offensive of Guillaume Gomez
During the Lyon festival, the former head of the Élysée Guillaume Gomez announced that he wanted to submit a file to bring Paul Bocuse into the Panthéon. Meilleur Ouvrier de France, he plans to submit this project to Emmanuel Macron and talks about two to three years of work, with his sights set on the chef’s centenary in 2026.
The initiative took the Bocuse family and the management of the Auberge du Pont de Collonges by surprise, who had not been warned. In Collonges, the proposal is welcomed: , we explain in the restaurant, cited by France 3.
After Marc Bloch, a Lyon chef at the Panthéon?
Passed away in January 2018, Paul Bocuse made his Auberge du Pont in Collonges-au-Mont-d’Or an institution, crowned with three Michelin stars for more than fifty years. He has trained generations of chefs and carried the colors of Lyon, described as the world capital of gastronomy, internationally.
If the file is successful, the leader would join two other great Lyon figures in the Pantheon, the resistance fighters Jean Moulin and, very recently, Marc Bloch. Beyond the person, this entry would bring the table and know-how into the national story, by establishing cuisine as a symbol of French heritage.
Between the will of Paul Bocuse and political calculation
Pantheonization remains a very political gesture. As Agathe Lambret, journalist at Radio France, analyzes. Emmanuel Macron has made it one of the visible tools of his memory policy.
This project of pantheonization of Paul Bocuse, with a response envisaged before May 2027, questions the place of “Monsieur Paul”. The cook, attached to a certain simplicity, dreamed of seeing his ashes and rests today in a small cemetery on the banks of the Saône, while the Nation wonders if its Pantheon could not, tomorrow, also accommodate gastronomy.
When could the pantheonization of Paul Bocuse take place?
Guillaume Gomez talks about a file prepared over two to three years, with 2026 as a possible horizon, the year of Paul Bocuse’s centenary.
Would Paul Bocuse be the first chef at the Panthéon?
Yes, no cook still rests there; his entry would be a first for gastronomy and for a chef.
What does the Bocuse family think of this project?
Surprised by the announcement, the family and the restaurant now see it as a huge honor for “Monsieur Paul”.
