President Biden arrives in France to participate in the Normandy Landing commemorations

The American president, who landed at the Paris Orly airport aboard Air Force One, will speak at official ceremonies on beaches known as Utah and Omaha Beach, where “73,000 brave Americans” landed to “open the way for the liberation of France and Europe,” according to the White House.

On June 6, 1944, “D-Day,” A force of 156,000 soldiers and 20,000 vehicles reached the beaches of Normandy, where the Nazis, who under the orders of Adolf Hitler occupied Western Europe, did not expect them.

This titanic operation contributed decisively to the end of World War II. on European territory in 1945, with Nazi Germany trapped between two fronts: the Atlantic, in the west, and the Soviet Union, in the east.

However, 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, for his invasion launched in Ukraine in 2022.
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Macron, for whom the Russian offensive represents an existential threat to Europe, hopes that the commemoration of the allied landing will also serve to express the support of Western powers for Ukraine.

During his trip to France, Zelensky plans to discuss his country’s needs in the war with both Biden and Macron. Ukraine will also be a topic of discussion during the US president’s state visit on Saturday in Paris.

But the most illustrious guests will be the veterans of the Second World War: around 200 are expected to attend, whose ages exceed 90 years and even 100.

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The wife of the French president, Brigitte Macron, welcomed the first veterans who began to arrive in Normandy, to whom she expressed “the deepest respect and the deepest love” of France, in a video published on the social network .

“I’m glad we won the war,” one told him. “Oh, yes, they won it,” she replied in English, shaking his hand tightly.

The landing of Allied forces, supported by airborne operations that dropped troops by parachute directly onto occupied ground, It was the largest naval operation in history due to the number of ships deployed and participating troops.

The “longest day”, as it became known, marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi occupation of Europe, although months of intense and bloody fighting still lay ahead before victory over Hitler’s regime.

During the three days of ceremonies, Macron will pay tribute to the French victims of the Nazi occupation, including 70 members of the French Resistance executed by the Germans in Caen prison in Normandy.

The first tributes in the presence of the French president are scheduled this Wednesday in the Breton town of Plumelec, in western France.

On Thursday, the day of the 80th anniversary, Leaders will attend national ceremonies in the vast war cemeteries of the Normandy coast, and to the international ceremony planned in Omaha.

On Friday, Biden will deliver a speech at the Pointe du Hoc – a clifftop promontory whose German bunkers were attacked by US troops in a daring assault – about defending freedom and democracy.

Macron will also give a speech that day in Bayeux, the first liberated French city.