Les unionistes au Chambon-sur-Lignon (1942-1943)

If the Darbysts refuse any organization, the Reformed Church relies on well-established institutions, particularly at the youth level. In 1844, George Williams founded a Protestant association in London to help the most deprived. The UCJG, Christian unions of young people (YMCA in English) were born. Among the 10 signatories of this charter is the Genevan Henry Dunant. This long joint journey of the UCJG and the Red Cross was fruitful at Le Chambon in 1942… In Paris, the UCJG moved to 14 rue de Trévise in 1893, and offered accommodation, a theater room, a swimming pool and a gymnasium where the first European basketball meetings took place, a sport created by the unionists. Americans. Charles Guillon, a young Alsatian refugee, frequents this place. His commitment continued during the First World War, in the wake of the hundreds of “soldiers’ homes” created on the front by the UCJG. At the end of the conflict, the unionists' red triangle became famous well beyond the Protestant world. If the establishment of the UCJG on the Plateau dates back to 1861, Guillon gave them new impetus when he became pastor of Saint-Agrève in 1919. In 1927, he was hired by the universal alliance in Geneva, without abandoning the Plateau. since he became the mayor of Chambon-sur-Lignon in 1931 and would continue to be so after the Liberation. He favored reception structures there during the 1940 conflict, notably the Joubert camp which the Minister of Youth Georges Lamirand inaugurated on August 10, 1942, and which is still in operation. And through a return to the muscular Christianity of the first UCJG, the Plateau became a hotbed of basketball in the region, with several cups to its credit exhibited in the unionist locker room. In 1907, Baden-Powell founded scouting in the United Kingdom. This adenominational movement was established in Normandy in 1911, at the Roches school in Verneuil-sur-Avre. This famous establishment then became the mecca of scouts, the French counterparts of the “boy scouts”. Henri and Ève Trocmé taught there ...