In five months, the American president will face his Republican predecessor Donald Trump in the presidential election.
Faced with this rival convinced of the “decline” of the leading world power, whose name he did not mention, the 81-year-old democrat proposed from Pointe du Hoc, in Normandy, a heroic vision of American destiny.
“Today when we look at this battlefield, and all the bunkers and all the bomb craters (…) one thought comes to mind. My God, my God, but how did they do it?” said Joe Biden, recalling the memory of American soldiers.
Behind him, the blue waters of the English Channel and a monument commemorating the assault given to this rocky promontory that is Pointe du Hoc by the “Rangers”, who on June 6, 1944 wrested this strategic position from the German army.
“Who can doubt that they would want America to stand up against Putin’s aggression in Europe? (…) Who can believe that these Rangers would want America to isolate itself today? (… ) Who can doubt that they would move heaven and earth to defeat the ideologues of hatred today?” asked the American president.
So many questions referring, in a transparent manner, to the choice that the Americans will have to make in November.
“What America stands for”
These fighters of 1944 “are not asking us to scale these cliffs. They are asking us to remain faithful to what America represents”, in particular democracy and loyalty to major international alliances, said Joe Biden.
Everything in his speech aimed to establish a contrast with the 77-year-old Republican, at a time when the polls are struggling to decide between them.
By invoking the bravery of the Rangers, Joe Biden also sought to project the authority that many Americans struggle to see in this octogenarian president, whose gait is now very cautious and whose speech is sometimes labored.
He constantly denounces the isolationist tendencies of his rival and presents him as a danger to democracy.
The Republican billionaire does not hide his fascination with authoritarian leaders and who seems obsessed with the idea of ”revenge” — facing the one who beat him in 2020, which he has never conceded, as facing to the justice that pursues him.
The former Republican president is also a virulent critic of NATO. And his supporters in the American Congress blocked a huge aid package for Ukraine for several months.
Shortly before speaking in Normandy, Joe Biden met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris, to whom he announced aid of 225 million euros, taken from this envelope voted by Congress.
Friday’s speech inevitably recalled the one delivered at the same location on June 6, 1984 by Republican President Ronald Reagan.
Reagan
In a speech considered one of the most eloquent ever delivered by an American president, the former actor saluted “the guys from Pointe du Hoc. The men who took the cliff. The champions who helped liberate a continent .Heroes who helped end a war.”
“You all knew that some things are worth dying for. The country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for,” said Ronald Reagan.
The White House had invited a veteran of the landings to attend Joe Biden’s speech.
Installed in the front row in his wheelchair, a blanket on his knees, John Wardell, 99 years old, was by his very presence, again, a reminder of the contrast that the Democrat wants to establish with his Republican rival.
According to the press, Donald Trump once described American soldiers who died at the front as “losers” and “poor guys” (suckers).
