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On 21 January 2012, five years after Abbé Pierre’s death, Emmaus set up a heritage site in Normandy, France in memory of the movement’s founder.

The Abbé Pierre – Emmaus centre is located in Esteville at the house where Abbé Pierre would often stay and actually lived for a few years. According to his wishes, he is buried in the village alongside 40 companions, including the first, Georges Legay, and the co-founder of the Emmaus movement, Lucie Coutaz.

With its elaborate set design, the centre recounts this remarkable man’s life story and ideas and Emmaus’s action around the world, past and present. 

It also organises temporary exhibitions portraying Abbé Pierre and Emmaus’s action.

POINT OF VIEW

Inauguration speech by Jean Rousseau,
Chair of Emmaus International (from 2007 to 2016) and of the Abbé Pierre – Emmaus Centre

“First and foremost, we wanted to pay tribute to our founder, Abbé Pierre, who is an inspiration to us all. We also want to continue telling people about and honouring this extraordinary man, who possessed  an astonishing audacity and simplicity. Above all, we want to continue his fight alongside the weakest and forgotten members of society with whom we work in many parts of the world.  
[…] Getting to know Abbé Pierre better – the private and public man, the capuchin monk, Resistance worker, politician, traveller and citizen of the world who became involved in the adventure that is Emmaus – involves understanding the struggles that were necessary in days gone by and that are still necessary today.”

The centre welcomes school visits. In 2013 the French Ministry of Culture and Communication included the centre on its register of Maison des Illustres, a French status granted to sites whose purpose is to conserve collections associated with public figures in order to increase their visibility, and promote remarkable buildings for their history and because of the people who lived in them.

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