On the beach in northwest France, Western leaders commemorate on Thursday (6/6/2024) the eightieth anniversary of the Normandy Landings, which paved the way to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, invited the leaders of the former allied powers: his American counterpart, Joe Biden, the British king, Charles III, and the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, whose troops landed on June 6, 1944.
“It is with the deepest sense of gratitude that we remember them and all those who served at that critical moment,” Charles III said in the French town of Ver-sur-Mer, where he paid tribute to Allied soldiers and French civilians. who lost their lives, as well as the courage of the French resistance. “Free nations must unite to oppose tyranny,” said the monarch.
Presence of 200 veterans
The French president also invited some 200 veterans, the last survivors of the tens of thousands of soldiers who risked their lives on the sandy beaches and cliffs of Normandy, often far from their homes, under intense German counterfire.
Macron also invited leaders of the then enemy powers – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian President Sergio Mattarella – and the Ukrainian head of state, Volodymyr Zelensky, to the ceremony on Omaha Beach in a hugely symbolic gesture.
Russia’s absence
The big absentee from the commemoration is Russia. Despite the high price that the Soviet Union paid in the final victory (27 million civilian and military deaths), Russian President Vladimir Putin was not invited, unlike 10 years ago. The reason for his absence is his invasion of Ukraine.
“This war is a betrayal of the messages” of D-Day, Macron explained to the television program Quotidien to justify the non-invitation of his Russian counterpart, to whom he had “written”. The Western powers thus want to show their support for kyiv. The French president, who warned in April that Europe “can die” from the Russian offensive and did not rule out sending allied troops to Ukraine in January, took advantage of the D-Day ceremonies to draw a parallel with the current Ukrainian conflict.
MS (afp/dpa)
