Manon Tardon

  • Manon Tardon
    Domain:
    Activism
    Date of birth:
    August 17, 1913 in Fort de France
    Date of death:
    December 23, 1989 in Fort de France

Yvonne Renée Manon Tardon was born on August 17, 1913 in Fort-de-France, into a family of 5 children (three boys and two girls) where she was the 3rd, Ashton and Raphaël. His parents are Asthon Tardon (1882-1944) and Berthe Marie Waddy (1887-1961) and were landowners of more than 700 hectares. His father was Mayor of the Prêcheur and general councilor.

His brother Raphaël Tardon was a great poet and writer. Beautiful and intelligent, Manon Tardon was adored by her father. Instead of attending public school, she has a home tutor, something that was reserved for the aristocracy at the time. Later, she returned to Fort de France where she was enrolled in the colonial boarding school. Gifted, she passed her baccalaureate at the age of 15!

She left for Paris where she enrolled at the Sorbonne and became a friend of the future President of the Republic, Georges Pompidou. She obtained a degree in history and geography and two higher certificates (Modern and Contemporary History and another in History of the Middle Ages). During her studies she met her future husband Jack Sainte-Luce Banchelin, son of the censor at the old Schoelcher high school.

He is a lawyer at the Paris bar and will be a parachute commander during the war. From their marriage will be born a daughter, who died in infancy, and later a son, Pierre, born in 1942. While France is at war, she enlists in the army and follows the École des cadres du Général Delattre. from Tassigny.

She is a Women's Weapon Specialist in the Army, first at the rank of midshipman then officer and lieutenant. She participated in the various resistance networks of Free France, she took refuge in Châteaudun in Eure-et-Loir, where she was at the time of the landing of the Anglo-American armies in Normandy in 1944, she welcomed the troops on August 19, 1944. of General Bradley en route to Paris which followed those of General Leclerc of the 2nd Armored Division for the liberation of Paris.

In the army, she sympathizes with another Creole Martinican, Simone Beuzelin. This is how she saw the great period of Resistance in her activity. She will campaign in Alsace and Vercors and will receive the Croix de Guerre with vermeil palm for her action carried out during the war. On May 8, 1945, she was part of the delegation headed by General de Lattre de Tassigny, to receive the act of surrender from Nazi Germany.

She was present there in her capacity as a 1st category specialist staff officer, she was certainly one of the only women present during this historic event. In 1945, she returned to Martinique on leave for 6 months, to settle urgent family matters. Then, she was demobilized on the spot on June 23, 1946. After being demobilized in 1946, back in Martinique, no doubt to stay in the movement, Manon learned to fly.

She then fought for fifteen years a long and incessant battle to recover the family domain of Anse Couleuvre in Prêcheur, the hereditary heritage, which was occupied by a tough tenant. She won her case and was able to definitively regain possession of all her family assets.

She died suddenly on December 23, 1989 at the age of 76 in Fort de France following a fall on the stairs of her ancestral home. She will have the honor of official funerals with a military delegation and her coffin adorned with the French flag, a symbol of her commitment to the Republic.

Her dearest wish will be fulfilled, to die on her native island and her reclaimed domain that she cherished more than anything.