Emmanuel Macron will travel to the Vercors on April 16 to launch the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Landing.
The prelude to a “vast program” made up of thousands of “local events” or of “national or international scope”, he said in a video on Wednesday.
The Head of State will first celebrate the memory of the Vercors resistance fighters.
He will then pay a first tribute to the paratroopers on June 5 in Plumelec (Morbihan) and Saint-Lô (Manche).
The next day, for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, Emmanuel Macron will chair a British, American and Canadian ceremony around veterans, including 200 expected from abroad and "a few French survivors", according to the Élysée.
My dear compatriots,
This year we are commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Liberation.
Let us share and inscribe our family memories in our national history.
Let us honor our liberators.
Let us make young people the transmitters of our memory.
pic.twitter.com/8hFggZ9aRw
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) March 6, 2024
The question of a Russian delegation is under consideration, also indicated the Presidency of the Republic, while Vladimir Putin was present at the 70th anniversary of the Normandy Landings, but absent five years ago.
“Celebrate the courage of our liberators, resistance fighters, soldiers”
On June 7, the President of the Republic will commemorate the persistence of the Republic in Bayeux (Calvados) and Cherbourg (Manche) and, three days later, he will travel to Tulle (Corrèze) and Oradour-sur-Glane (Haute-Vienne). ), scene of Nazi abuses.
On June 18, the traditional tribute to General de Gaulle's appeal will take place at Mont-Valérien (Hauts-de-Seine) and on the island of Sein (Finistère).
“2024 will remember the rebirth of our nation” and must “celebrate the courage of our liberators, resistance fighters, soldiers from allied countries, fighters of the army reconstituted by Free France on the African continent”, including “many from Africa, the Pacific or the whole world,” explained the President of the Republic in his video.
“These young women and young men, like our young people today, had their dreams and their plans for the future;
they had the courage to commit to freedom, against Nazi barbarity, often at the cost of their lives,” he stressed.
Read alsoAt 100 years old, this American veteran who participated in the Landings wants to return to Normandy to get married
In addition to a July 14 parade during which “the universality of the values of those who liberated the country” will be discussed, a tribute to the liberation of Provence, with a “real landing” by “real soldiers” and “a amphibious maneuver” must take place in August, before a tribute to the resistance fighters in Provence.
Eighty years after the Liberation of Paris in August, a “popular” event will be held around Place Denfert-Rochereau in the capital, then, at the end of November, the liberation of Strasbourg and the last battles on French soil will be commemorated.