Braving a biting winter wind, dignitaries gathered in front of Polytechnique Montréal’s main campus on Friday to pay tribute to the 14 women killed at the Montreal institution in an anti-feminist attack 35 years ago.
Among those silently laying white flowers at the foot of a commemorative plaque was Louis Courville, who was the interim director of the school in 1989.
“I am glad that there are many people who did not forget what has happened,” Courville, 90, said afterwards. “At the same time, it’s the memory of a very sad, horrible thing.”
The women murdered in 1989 were Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte and Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz.
Thirteen others were injured in the attack perpetrated by Marc Lépine, who took his own life. He had ranted about feminists ruining …