November the 18th, 2025 – Jean-Michel Nicolier has been posthumously granted Croatian citizenship, as has his mother, Lyliane Fournier.
As Jutarnji list/Nikola Patkovic writes, yesterday, one day before the commemoration of the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Vukovar and Škabrnja, one of the many heroes of Vukovar, Jean-Michel Nicolier, was posthumously granted Croatian citizenship. The same was also granted to his mother, Lyliane Fournier. This was announced by Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, who received Lyliane Fournier and other members of her family at Banski Dvori.
“Today, as a sign of gratitude, we posthumously granted Croatian citizenship to the hero of Vukovar, Jean-Michel Nicolier, who was killed at Ovčara, and to his mother, Lyliane Fournier, who lives in Croatia. His sacrifice and her immense love for Croatia are permanently inscribed in our common memory and identity,” Plenković announced on the X (formerly Twitter) platform.
Jean-Michel Nicolier is one of three Croatian defenders whose bones were recently exhumed from a mass grave at Ovčara, he’s also one of four all together who were identified and finally given a dignified burial just before the 34th anniversary of the fall of Vukovar. The young Frenchman, who was brutally murdered at the age of 25, was buried at the Memorial Cemetery of the Victims of the Homeland War in Vukovar, according to his mother’s wishes. The move was in line with one of his last statements he made to French television in November 1991 at the Vukovar hospital, mere days before his death: “Vukovar is my choice, for better or for worse!”
Jean-Michel’s family also met in Tovarnik with the family of the late Antun Ivanković, the Croatian veteran who first introduced the wider Croatian public to the figure and brave deeds of Jean-Michel, and who also who found the Nicolier family in France and brought them to Croatia. He did this all with the aim of preserving the selfless actions of Jean-Michel, and the fact he gave his life for Croatia, from being forgotten.
