It is an honour to hold the office, Mr Laparra says, but the place also has deep family ties for him. He is the fourth generation of Laparras in Fleury-devant-Douaumont.
His father, Jean, was a member of the commission municipale, which examines questions related to mairie affairs.
“I am a gatekeeper of memory,” Mr Laparra tells The Connexion.
We speak about his job, the questions children ask when they visit, the silence and why the village still holds profound meaning in the 21st Century.
I have read the duties expected of a mayor and many do not apply to your unique position. What do you do, exactly?
Technically speaking, I am a président de commission municipale with all the powers of a mayor. The only difference is that I cannot vote in senatorial elections. I am elected every six years by the prefect of Meuse.
Jean-Pierre Laparra
The area belongs to the state – with the National Forests Office (ONF) managing the forest in the ‘red zone’ (the area that suffered the most shellings and casualties) but the management of the town centre conceded to us mayors.
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In terms of the security and law and order work normally expected of a mayor, I happen to be a police officer with justice powers like any other mayor.
But given that my office is in Fleury-devant-Douaumont, there is obviously little to do.
As far as other mayoral duties are concerned, we do not have schools, water services or electricity. The administrative tasks are handled by the intercommunal structure of Grand Verdun.
In terms of general maintenance and cleanliness of the village, whenever possible I check that trees have not fallen, the grass is not too long…
What does this role mean for you?
It is an honour for two reasons. Firstly, because of my family’s history: my great-grandfather, a quarry worker from Charente, moved to the village in 1909 to work on the construction of forts to protect Verdun, ahead of an expected war.
My grandfather met my grandmother in Verdun and they subsequently married. They left the village during the war, and it no longer existed when they came back.
Secondly, it is an honour because I am the gatekeeper of this village’s memory.
A big part of my job is explaining to children that, 100 years ago, people lived here.
It is meant to show the horror of war, that it can go as far as wiping out an entire village.
I recently spoke to two journalists who had an exhibition about the war in Ukraine. It displayed pictures of the results of war in villages there. They said that what they found was similar to Verdun.
You walk through the village at least twice a week. What do you do?
I keep an eye on the few things that remain – the chapel, the surroundings, the commemorative monuments – to ensure, for example, that plaques have not been broken or stolen. That happens. It is mainly a general overview of the village.
I am also sometimes booked as a guide for school visits.
How do you handle those? What questions do students ask?
There are two parts. You have to explain the context of the village – why it disappeared, the role it played in World War One, its significance. This is easily absorbed. They picture the war pretty well when it comes to battles.
I show them where the school was and I explain the differences with their school in 2025 – how boys and girls were separated, how students had to bring firewood in the morning to heat up the classroom.
All these things make quite an impression on them.
And then there is the daily life of the soldier on the western front. How did they contact their family? How did they eat or go to the toilet? Those sorts of questions.
Their questions are usually very funny and down-to-earth actually.
What do you think about when you are in the village?
When I walk down the street, I hear the laughter of children in the schoolyard overseen by their teacher, Bérard; the hammering of Mangin, the tinsmith and Lahaye, the blacksmith, shoeing a horse.
I hear the voices in the bar of the Body family, the clinking of glasses from the restaurant owned by Father Simon. I hear the animals.
A village has very particular sounds. I feel and live them.
It is interesting that you focus so much on sounds because visitors often mention the deafening silence
Through silence, there is life. There is a moment in the year when the weather is heavy with mist, fog, rain and cold.
This is when I think about the soldiers. The silence weighs on you and makes you quiet.
There is no noise, even in the forest. In spring, the animals return. That is when I hear these noises.
But your observation reminds me of something teachers have told me about their pupils.
As soon as they get off the bus, the natural energy of their youth fades away and they become very calm and composed. They listen. All teachers have told me that they see something happening to them.
The discovery of bodies 'is the most interesting part of my job', you said. Why?
Because it involves everyone from the gendarmes, the district attorney and the mayor, to forensic doctors and military burials officials – and because you connect with family members of fallen soldiers.
Some 26 bodies were found in 2013 and seven were identified. Two were returned to their municipality, and the others are in the nearby necropolis. Among them was Jean Peyrelongue.
His granddaughter regularly came to Fleury-Devant-Douaumont because one state letter indicated that he had disappeared there. We were able to identify him because the hole in his head was mentioned in the letter.
Similarly, we identified soldier Claude Fournier in 2014 thanks to DNA. I took part in ceremonies in his native village, outside of Mâcon, and saw his name engraved on the town’s war memorial.I give back their stories to these families.
It is a role very few other mayors experience over their term in office.
We found the remains of three French soldiers during electrical cable work in 2024 and, only three months ago, 54 bodies were found and identified. We will not exhume them, but we know their names thanks to historical documents.
What advice would you give some of our readers who are interested in visiting?
There should be an order, a logical sequence, to the visit. First, visit Verdun to look at the citadel and understand the context in which the surrounding villages fought.
Consider that if Verdun was taken it opened roads toward Paris. I would then go north to visit the forts that protected Verdun.
The designated memorial site in Fleury is its former train station. Exploring the village trails helps to better understand the Battle of Verdun.
Visitors will be at the epicentre of it, the red zone, where the state considered that no reconstruction effort could overcome the damage done.
You mentioned the war in Ukraine. Former French president François Hollande gave a speech in Fleury-devant-Douaumont in 2016, emphasising the strength of the European Union. Does the village take new meaning in the current geopolitical context?
It should serve as a cautionary tale.
Some 110 years ago, German imperialists fought for an insignificant piece of land. The European Union was created as the Europe for all peoples.
This sentiment is currently being ignored, forgotten.
Why are leaders taking us closer to war, something most people look to avoid?
We should neither forget nor ignore what happened here. Putin is forgetting.
