France commemorates on Sunday the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Paris from German Nazi occupation, nine months before the end of World War II. RFI looks at what's being remembered and how.
On 25 August 1944, after a week of strikes, barricades and street battles, the capital welcomed General Charles de Gaulle, the leader of France's provisional government in exile, after four years of Nazi occupation.
"Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated! Liberated by itself. Liberated by its people," the leader of Free France said in an address outside city hall the following day.
He and other key military leaders strode down the Champs-Elysées in triumph.
Each 25 August since then, France remembers the bravery and sacrifice of both the armed forces, Resistance fighters and ordinary citizens who helped free the city from Nazi rule.
A week-long liberation
Taking back control of Paris didn’t happen overnight. It began a week earlier, on 19 August, when the communist chief of the French Forces of the Interior (FFI), Henri Rol-Tanguy, gave orders for a general uprising.
The faction behind de Gaulle, who was in exile in London, issued the same call the following day.
Six days of street clashes ensued, with fighters from the French Resistance, supported by workers, women and even priests, later joined by French and US soldiers.
On the evening of 24 August, a column of military vehicles led by Major-General Philippe Leclerc, commander of the French 2nd Armoured Division, began arriving in Paris.
The very first Allied vehicles to drive into the city belonged to the 9th Company known as La Nueve, made up mostly of Spanish Republican fighters.
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While Hitler had instructed Germany's commander in Paris, Lieutenant-General Dietrich von Choltitz, to flatten the city in the event of an Allied attack, the diplomatic intervention of the then Swedish ambassador Raoul Nordling led Choltitz to ignore orders.
It gave Resistance fighters some extra time to organise their defence.
Some 1,000 Resistance fighters, 600 civilians and 156 French soldiers were killed during the week-long liberation of Paris. The German death toll was 3,200.
Choltitz surrendered at 3.30 pm at the Hotel Meurice, though it would be another nine months before Germany finally admitted defeat, ending World War II in Europe in May 1945.
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Military parade and Paralympic torch
For the 80th anniversary, Sunday's commemorations begin with mass at Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois church in Paris in memory of the 2nd Armoured Division, while a secular ceremony will be held at the Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad.
At midday, the Paris Fire Service will hoist France's flag on the Champs-Elysées – just as they did on 25 August 1944 in declaring the city free of Nazi occupation.
A wreath will be laid in tribute to Jose Manuel Baron Carreño, a Spanish guerrilla fighter with the French Resistance shot dead by the Nazis on 19 August. He is buried at Patin cemetery in the east of Paris – the area from which the Germans had entered the capital in June 1940.
Ceremonies in the afternoon include one to mark Germany’s surrender at the former Montparnasse station – where Leclerc had established his command post – followed by a tribute to the 2nd Armoured Division in front of the General Leclerc monument.
The main ceremony, led by President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, begins at 4.15 pm with a military parade from Porte d'Orleans to Place du Denfert-Rochereau in the south of the city.
At the end, they will welcome the arrival of the Paralympic Flame in France ahead of the opening of the Paralympic Games on 28 August.
The flame will be carried by five torchbearers representing the five towns officially recognised as "Compagnons de la Libération", members of the Order of the Liberation created by de Gaulle to honour those who contributed to France's freedom.
The day’s commemorations draw to a close at 7.30 pm with church bells across the capital chiming in unison.
