Paris To Name Avenue After Russia’s Alexei Navalny

Paris is naming part of an avenue after Alexei Navalny, the late Russian opposition leader who died in an Arctic prison colony in murky circumstances, the city council has said.

The Avenue de Pologne in the wealthy 16th district of the capital will have one side — with odd house numbers — named “Alexei Navalny”, city hall said after a Wednesday’s vote.

It picked the neighbourhood because it has traditionally been “that of the Russian diaspora”, it said in a statement, adding that the Russian embassy is also located there.

With the move, the French capital seeks to honour “the resistance he embodied against the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin”, the Russian president, it said in a statement.

Navalny, who died on February 16, 2024, would not normally be eligible for the honour, which is reserved for people who have been dead for at least five years, according to the city’s statutes.

But the city council “can make an exception motivated by the importance of a person’s actions or achievements”, said the statement.

No inauguration date has been decided yet.

Navalny died in unclear circumstances in the prison colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence for leading an “extremist” organisation.

The Kremlin has rejected accusations from Navalny’s allies and wife that Putin ordered him killed.

AFP