The ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings will culminate this Thursday, June 6, 2024 afternoon, at Omaha Beach, in the presence of around twenty heads of state, including American President Joe Biden.
Emmanuel Macron will welcome this Thursday, June 6, 2024, from 3:30 p.m., at Omaha Beach, in Normandy, around twenty heads of state and crowned heads for an international ceremony marking the high point of the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the Landing.
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Biden, Scholz, Zelensky… around twenty heads of state
US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will be among the guests. Just like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, invited unlike Russian President Vladimir Putin who has brought war and its procession of horrors to the European continent since February 24, 2022.
The veterans, the real distinguished guests
But the main distinguished guests will be them: these few dozen veterans, these heroes of D-Day, arriving in wheelchairs or clinging to their canes supported by loved ones, who will perhaps tread the ground of this country which owes them so much to honor the memory of their young brothers in arms who fell under Nazi fire at Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, Gold Beach, Juno Beach or Sword Beach, during the largest naval air operation in History . It will be “the presence, one last time at this level, for an anniversary, of veterans, of survivors”, we underline at the Élysée. “Afterwards, we will move from a living memory to a purely historical memory.”
From the Ver-sur-Mer memorial alongside Charles III
In the morning, Emmanuel Macron will also participate at 10:20 a.m. in the Franco-British ceremony at the Ver-sur-Mer memorial alongside King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
At the American cemetery of Colleville-sur-Mer in Bayeux
He will then be associated at 12:30 p.m. with the Franco-American ceremony at the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, in the presence of Joe Biden.
The commemorations will continue on Friday, in Bayeux, where the return of republican sovereignty and state authority will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m., before a military ceremony at 2 p.m. in Cherbourg.
“A youth ready for the same spirit of sacrifice”
On Wednesday, in Saint-Lô, Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the civilian victims of the fighting which accompanied the Landing of June 6, 1944.
On the eve of these D-Day celebrations, Emmanuel Macron greeted the inhabitants of this “martyr city sacrificed to liberate France”. On the night of June 6 to 7, there were some 350 victims in Saint-Lô, whose Notre-Dame church still bears the scars of the Allied bombings today.
Saint-Lô, martyr city
Very moved, Michel Finck, 87, remembered his “destroyed house” in Saint-Lô, while his father was a prisoner in Germany. “Families on my street were wiped out, the family transport business was destroyed,” he added. “All of this cannot be forgotten.” But “never in Saint-Lô has sorrow been mixed with hatred”, underlined the President in the gardens of the Stud Farm of the city, more than 90% destroyed in the wake of the Landing.
Emmanuel Macron took up the expression “capital of ruins” formulated by the playwright Samuel Beckett, who worked as a steward at the Irish Red Cross hospital in Saint-Lô after the war. “We must bring this memory into full light. Look at our History […] with sadness and lucidity”, commented the Head of State who also paid tribute during the day to the French commandos of the SAS and the Breton maquis in Plumelec and to the 77 resistance fighters killed by the Germans in Caen, whose bodies were not recovered. never been found.
“I know our country is strong in its bold, valiant youth, ready for the same spirit of sacrifice as its elders,” declared the head of state. “As the dangers mount, you remind us that we are ready to make the same sacrifices to defend what is most dear to us: our land of France and our republican values,” he told the elite units.
