«I welcome you to today’s event. The republication of the collection by Roger Milliex, “Tribute to Greece, 1940-1944”, activates so many things, memory, emotions, willingness for further research, it projects historical events and connects them to the present.
 
The texts and the accounts by distinguished French citizens, collected by Roger Milliex, which laud Greece and its people, for their contribution to WWII and the resistance to Nazi occupation, have an added value which makes this book valuable.
 
It is not a historical paradox that Greece and France supply each other with ideas for centuries, in an everlasting alliance for humanity.
 
When the French philosophers encountered the Greek thought, a great human revolution, focused on the search for democracy, the striving for human liberty and decency and finally for human rights, covered the whole world.
 
The basic inspiration of the Ancient Greeks, that the commons belong to everyone and that every person is responsible towards community was expressed more particularly, realising the principles of Enlightenment at the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the successful independence in Latin America, the Greek Revolution and any other raising of the human essence.
 
With regards to these ideas, efforts were structured to establish the human society, not based on enforcement but based on principles and rights. The distinction of powers finds its roots essentially at this meeting. The meeting of the urban way of life, the organisation of the state and parliamentarism with the socialist theory.
 
I dare say that it was on this field that an unbreakable friendship was established, between the French and the Greek Nation, always unperturbed, since the two peoples were always on the same side during the great challenges and turning points of human history. 
 
Roger Milliex was not just a Philhellene but he also became a Greek, who hearkened the pain, the agony and the fight of the Greek people and then he became their communicant and at the same time their international herald.
 
Ladies and Gentlemen,
 
As a people, as a nation we have one benefit. We have real friends whose views coincide with ours and who even give their lives for the universally human ideals of liberty, justice and solidarity on Greek soil.
 
This happens because the Greeks have warmly embraced the values of liberty and decency, they have fought and are still fighting for more than their Homeland’s defence, in struggles which encounter and revitalise the human values which were born at this part of the Mediterranean.
 
We will never forget the role of Roger Milliex regarding the initiative at the French Institute of Athens, when the Mataroa ship, in December 1945, was transformed into a modern Ark, transporting tens of young Greek artists and scientists from Greece to Italy and then finally to Paris, in order to escape from the political persecution.
 
This book is like a letter sent by France to the Greek people, as is stressed by Roger Milliex. It was composed at the beginning of the post-war period, from 1945 to 1948 and it took approximately thirty years to reach its recipient, when it was published for the first time in 1979.

Roger Milliex, by presenting this collection of accounts, sends a political message, considering that it has an everlasting value.
 
He wrote:
 
“A prophesy which unfortunately after 1945 has been proven false… At a time when Greece strives to become officially and institutionally more European than it already is, it would be wise on the Europeans’ part to examine their consciousnesses regarding “ingratitude” towards a great and grandiose small people”.
 
Ladies and gentlemen,
 
The trip to historical memory is fascinating and useful. Historical memory and national memory attribute value to the notion of National Defence and have become its basic constituents.
 
Our territory on land, at sea and in the air was not given to us freely by any treaty but was instead bloodily liberated and then came the treaties to ratify this fact.
 
Our people and the Hellenic Armed Forces as its integral part, constitute a guarantee for the defence of our territorial integrity and national sovereignty. With their powerful deterrent role they operate as a factor of peace and stability, in a region surrounded by instability and conflicts.
 
Finally I would like to thank and congratulate all those who contributed to this effort. Especially the professor Aristidis Giapalis, for the idea of the publication, but also his coworkers for the translation and the attribution to the Greek language of the original text of the French edition, who all worked voluntarily.
 
I thank you all for your presence here. The President of the Hellenic Republic, who honours us with his presence, is kindly requested to make his address.»