To mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, French President Emmanuel Macron will preside over an international ceremony on Omaha Beach on June 6. Every 10-year anniversary of D-Day has become a not-to-be-missed event for many heads of state. These commemorations have not always had a political and diplomatic dimension, but have acquired an international following over the decades.
US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European Council President Charles Michel. On Thursday June 6, 25 heads of state, kings and queens, representatives of allied and enemy countries, will join French President Emmanuel Macron at the international tribute to the more than 150,000 soldiers who landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.
D-Day commemorations have become a key political and diplomatic event for many of the world's leaders, but June 6 has not always been so keenly observed.
It took several decades for this historic day of remembrance to acquire an international following.
Only a few hundred people commemorated the first anniversary of Operation Overlord, the code name for the Battle of Normandy, on June 6, 1945. World War II was not yet over in the Pacific, so the ceremony was limited to a delegation comprising the ambassadors of the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, along with the French Ministers of war, the navy and the air force, who met at the town of Arromanches.
In the years that followed, and as Normandy recovered from the war, the commemorations were almost exclusively military and mainly French. “They were more like popular communal events, with small committees set up all over the place,” says Tristan Lecoq, associate professor at Paris Sorbonne University and a specialist in contemporary military history.
De Gaulle ignores June 6
For the 10th anniversary of D-Day, the ceremonies took on a more official tone. French President René Coty, a native of Le Havre, visited the Calvados and Manche départements for two days. At Utah Beach, he attended a parade of Allied troops and inaugurated the D-Day Museum, the first museum built in Normandy to commemorate the landings.
Ten years later, in 1964, the commemorations were broadcast live on television for the first time. But the French president, Charles de Gaulle, was conspicuous by his absence.
“He refused to commemorate June 6, given the way he had been treated at the time of the D-Day landings. He hadn't been involved in the discussions or in the implementation of the plan,” explains historian Denis Peschanski, involved in promoting local commemorative events for this year’s anniversary as part of the Mission Libération.
“He always refused to recognise or even review the Kieffer commando,” explained Lecoq, referring to the only French commando unit to take part in D-Day. “As far as he was concerned, they were foreigners on the payroll. Behind it all was the notion of national and military sovereignty.”
De Gaulle preferred to attend the commemorations on August 15, 1964 of the landings of troops on the Mediterranean coast in the south of France, and to highlight the role of French units, particularly troops based in French North Africa, in the Liberation of France.
In 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the newly elected French president, did not make the trip to Normandy either, but simply sent his Minister of the Armed Forces, Jacques Soufflet, to represent the government.
The following year, Giscard abolished May 8 – celebrating the Allied victory in 1945 – as a public holiday. “He wanted to appear like a young president, free of the heavy-handedness of the De Gaulle and Pompidou eras. He wanted to move on to another era,” says Lecoq.
In 1981, having just been elected president, François Mitterrand reinstated the May 8 holiday.
The 1984 commemorative turning point
The real turning point for the D-Day commemoration and its significance in global politics came in 1984. For the first time, the French president invited six heads of state, including US President Ronald Reagan and the Queen of England, to an international ceremony at Utah Beach, attended by thousands of veterans.
At Pointe du Hoc, where US Army Rangers fought fierce battles with German soldiers, Reagan was filmed in a bunker with his wife, Nancy, while Mitterrand met Queen Elizabeth II at the British cemetery in Bayeux. Peschanski says that this was ”the start of the very big commemorations that make them a global event".
After a period of détente, the early 1980s saw a resurgence of East-West tensions, notably with the Euromissile crisis over the deployment – by the USSR and by NATO – of medium-range missiles in Europe. For Lecoq, the French president's aim during this period was to demonstrate his stature and underline the importance of transatlantic ties: “During the ceremony, he was the only one to speak. He positioned himself, to a certain extent, as the guarantor of the Western alliance.”
In 1994, near the end of his second term, Mitterrand again presided over an international ceremony for the 50th anniversary of D-Day, attended by a dozen heads of state. The geopolitical context had changed completely, five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing reunification of Germany. The Cold War was over. Poland was invited for the first time, represented by its president Lech Walesa.
In 2004, it was the turn of Russia and Germany to take part in the commemorations. Russian President Vladimir Putin was present at Gold Beach, as was German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. The mutual pledges of friendship between Schroder and French President Jacques Chirac at the Caen Memorial museum were another historic episode. “Europe has learned its lesson, and we Germans will not shirk it,” declared Schroder, while the French president replied: “The French receive you more than ever as a friend. They receive you as a brother."
In 2004, as the values of peace and reconciliation were being celebrated, the nature of the D-Day ceremonies also changed. Through the use of re-enactments and staging, they became a made-for-TV spectacle.
The Normandy format
As part of the 70th anniversary, the impact of D-Day on local communities was evoked, with President François Hollande finally paying national tribute to the 20,000 civilian victims of the Battle of Normandy. But 2014’s observance also had a very international character, with the presence of 24 heads of state, heads of government and monarchs at Sword Beach.
The tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine were the main concern of leaders at these commemorations. Hollande, in consultation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, decided to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko to try to put an end to the conflict triggered by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea.
A semi-official meeting between representatives of Germany, Russia, Ukraine, and France, held on the day of the June 6 celebrations, became known as as the “Normandy format”. A number of meetings were held as part of this diplomatic initiative, continuing until February 2022, a few days before Russia invaded Ukraine.
This year the Russian president has been declared persona non grata. Paris has even rejected any Russian representation at the D-Day commemorations, contrary to its original intention.
“The conditions are not met in view of the war of aggression against Ukraine, which has intensified in recent weeks,” said France’s presidential spokesman.
On the other hand, Ukraine’s President Zelensky will be present alongside Macron, Biden and European leaders. On the beaches of Normandy, the West will try to appear more united than ever in the face of Russia.
The future absence of veterans
On the domestic front, the French president is planning three-days of ceremonies and speeches in Brittany and Normandy to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
In the course of this busy programme, he intends to touch on everything from the French resistance and civilian casualties, to the logistics of Operation Overlord and the return of the republican regime in France.
This 80th anniversary will also mark a new turning point, likely being the last ten-year anniversary at which veterans will be present. But even as the last of those who took part in the landings pass away, the attention paid to these commemorations shows no sign of flagging.
After eight decades, D-Day observances still enjoy enormous popular fervour, according to historian Peschanski.
“This is evident in the incredible number of local initiatives, particularly in schools, whether in Normandy or throughout France," Peschanki says.
"The issue of passing along this history to the next generation is well and truly assimilated. There's a real enthusiasm and it's not likely to fade.”
This story has been translated from the original in French.
