The eyes of the world will be on Paris this summer when the City of Light hosts the Summer Olympics; but first France will show its gratitude toward World War II veterans who will return, many for the last time, to Normandy beaches this year for 80th anniversary commemorations of D-Day to mark the defeat of the Nazis.
French President Emmanuel Macron said that D-Day celebrations, alongside the Paris Olympics, will be “France’s rendezvous with the world.”
Nearly 160,000 troops from Britain, the US, Canada, and other nations who landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944, will be honoured at a ceremony at Omaha Beach, with many heads of state expected to be present.
It will be an occasion for the French to say “merci,” or “thank you,” to veterans, some of whom will make a long trans-Atlantic journey, despite advanced age, fatigue, and physical difficulties.
“We will never forget. And we have to tell them,” said Philippe Étienne, chairman of the Liberation Mission, the specially created body that organizes the 80th anniversary commemorations.
As a former ambassador of France to the United States, Étienne recalled his “strong emotion” when handing veterans the Legion of Honor, France’s highest distinction.
“They were 18, 20, 22 when they liberated our country, when they gave us back our freedom,” he said. “Now 80 years later, they’re 100, 98, 102. It’s really incredible. Those are really courageous, humble people. They must feel our gratitude.”
The link between the last witnesses of the war and the youth will also be at the heart of the anniversary.
“What we want above all, when the last witnesses, the last fighters, the last veterans are still with us, is to give their testimonies to our young people,” Étienne added.
In the past couple of years, commemorations also have taken a special meaning as war is raging again in Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
Gen. Michel Delion, director-general of the Liberation Mission, said “that the message is more for the whole population than only for soldiers. Because the price of liberty is something that any citizen of any democratic nation needs to understand.”
“The civilians were part of this (World War II) conflict because they suffered, and they supported fighters. And we need to have this cohesion of our nations, of our populations to be able to answer to any question … or any danger we could face tomorrow or today,” he added.
Étienne said that the commemorations, including some academic events, “will surely not ignore the sacrifices of everybody who … was involved in the liberation of Europe, including in the East, because the Nazi regime was defeated both from the West and from the East.”
Other key events will include celebrations of the Allied landing in Provence, in southern France, and the liberation of Paris, both in August, as well as the liberation of Strasbourg, at the border with Germany, in November, and the commemoration in May 2025 of the surrender of Nazi Germany to Allied forces.
Already across France, “we feel that there’s a very strong mobilization to remember this very important period in history,” said Fabien Sudry, deputy director-general of the Liberation Mission. “We feel it in the contacts we have, in the trips we make, with many local and regional authorities involved.”