French President Emmanuel Macron attended a memorial ceremony on Monday to mark the 80th anniversary of the Nazi massacre at the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, the site of one of the worst massacres by the Nazis in World War II. The village was destroyed by SS troops in 1944 and 642 inhabitants were killed.
Macron was joined at the ceremony by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who warned against the dangers of nationalism, a day after European elections saw advances for the far right.
It is "fittingly on the day after the European elections that I say: let us never forget the damage done in Europe by nationalism and hate. Let us never forget the miracle of reconciliation the European Union has worked", Steinmeier said at the ceremony.
Macron called post-war Franco-German ties "the lifeblood of our European project".
"It is in this memory, in the ashes of Oradour, that we have to ensure the strength of this reconciliation is reborn," said the French president.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
