September 29th is Saint Michael’s day in France. He is the saint patron of, amongst others, the French paratroopers. It all began in 1944, when a british chaplain gave medals representing Saint Michael to the paratroopers of the 2nd SAS, before their jump in Bretagne, to join the Resistance. The following year, the military chaplain Valin de la Vaissière formally suggested Saint Michael as patron of the paratroopers. This idea was approved by father Jego, chaplain of the 3rd Battalion of the 1st RCP. In 1948, it is father Jego who, during a service which went down in history, held in the cathedral of Hanoï (during the Indochina war), ended his sermon by “Et par Saint Michel, vive les parachutists!”, a sentence that became the traditional conclusion of the speeches made by the paratrooper regiment chiefs. The election of Saint Michael as protector makes perfect sense, since he was tasked to fight off the rebellion of the angels, and descended from the sky, leading his militia, to face them, according to John’s Apocalypse. One thinks of Eugène Delacroix’s mural in Paris’ Saint Sulpice church, or of Luca Giordano’s painting, both representing a winged Michael dominating the fallen angels.
