Emmanuel Macron will travel early next week to Normandy to celebrate Monday, June 5 the millennium of the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel and then launch Tuesday, in Calvados, the preparations for the 80th anniversary of the allied landing of June 6, 1944 which will take place in 2024.
The famous rocky islet of the English Channel, connected to France by a simple road at high tide, is a place that symbolizes "everything that makes the French a people of conquerors and builders," said Thursday an adviser to the head of state, setting the tone of a move under the sign of a certain lyricism.
Speech
The most visited site in the country outside Île-de-France, Mont-Saint-Michel attracted 2.8 million visitors last year, including 1.3 million for the abbey. It will not be closed to visitors for the occasion, but the prefecture will take "the necessary measures" so that the trip takes place "in the best possible conditions," said the Elysee.
President Macron will visit Monday afternoon the exhibition "The abode of the archangel", which traces through thirty objects the history of this jewel of French heritage, and will deliver a speech. Tuesday morning, he will move to Ouistreham, on the site of the landing, to attend not the traditional ceremonies of June 6, planned in Ver-sur-Mer and chaired by the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu, but the annual commemoration organized by the School of Marine Fusiliers.
Homage
He will give with Léon Gautier, the last living Frenchman to have participated in the landing, aged 100, the green berets to the students who have just succeeded in their commando course. His presence is a tribute to the 177 French who landed on June 6, 1944, grouped within the Kieffer Commando. Above all, the head of state will officially install the public interest group that will be responsible for preparing the major commemorations planned in a year for the 80th anniversary.
He will also visit the new D-Day Museum in Arromanches, which has just reopened in a new building. This trip will coincide with the new day of union mobilization against the pension reform, promulgated in mid-April by Emmanuel Macron after months of protest.
