Charles Aznavour Bust Unveiled in Paris

PARIS — The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo inaugurated on Saturday a bust of Charles Aznavour, who died in 2018, in the childhood district of the legendary French-Armenian singer and composer in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. This bronze bust, after a plaster cast in 1964 by the sculptor Alice Mélikian on the occasion of the artist’s first visit to Armenia, was offered by the Aznavour Foundation to the City of Paris in October 2019, a year after the singer’s death.

It was inaugurated for the singer’s birthday, born May 22, 1924, in the presence of members of his family, and installed at the Odeon crossroads, in the district where the author of “La Bohême” spent his childhood. In the presence of the slammer Grand Corps Malade and the Ambassador of Armenia, Anne Hidalgo praised the singer’s “exceptional career longevity”, his “love of the French capital” but also reaffirmed her support for the “Armenian people” in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.

The Council of Paris had voted in November several measures coming to the aid of the Armenian population of Nagorny Karabakh and expressed the wish that the “Republic of Artsakh”, name by which Armenians designate this region, be recognized. Ms. Hidalgo also called for “universal recognition of the Armenian genocide” between 1915 and 1917, “a dark page in our history”, which the parents of Charles Aznavour had fled. The elected socialist denounced “negationism, this propaganda which reappears, here and there, including on our territory”.

Another bust of Charles Aznavour was unveiled at the same time in Stepanakert, capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, said Nicolas Aznavour, son of the singer and co-founder of the Aznavour Foundation.