D Day commemoration ceremonies

[anotherbanana]

Anybody watch them; very moving I thought and with just the right atmosphere. Very good mixing of the young with the old.

[Loiseau]

The new monument looks most impressive.

Macron and his missus must have done a lot of whizzing about to - presumably - be at every ceremony.

[Lehaut]

Bet passports were the last thing on the troops minds when they parachuted in on the day!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/06/british-paratroopers-landing-in-france-for-d-day-event-told-to-show-passports#:~:text=Eyebrows were raised at the,near Saneville%2C Normandy on Wednesday.

 

[Hectorsdad]

We watched most of it on TV and agree that it was very well organised and presented with an excellent balance. It was particularly good to see the young French children who had undoubtedly been taught in school and probably at home about the events around D Day.

[Martin963]

Shame that Macron managed to be late for both the British and then the American ceremonies.     But then he's a slimy creep and probably did it for effect.

Glad you flagged up the passport story Lehaut.   My French friends think it's a disgrace that British soldiers were treated like that,  I'm pleased to say.    As someone commented,   ordinary French folk knew what our boys did for them in 1944,   but for French and EU officialdom history only begins in 2016.

[alittlebitfrench]

9 hours ago, Lehaut said:

Bet passports were the last thing on the troops minds when they parachuted in on the day!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/06/british-paratroopers-landing-in-france-for-d-day-event-told-to-show-passports#:~:text=Eyebrows were raised at the,near Saneville%2C Normandy on Wednesday.

 

Utterly disgraceful. Utterly Shameful…Utterly embarrassing.

But that is France for you.

 

[Gardian]

All this business about Sunak ‘leaving early’ is a major Tory own goal.

Whatever possessed one of his many advisers (let alone himself) that it was more important to return to the UK for a TV interview, rather than attend a commemorative event with the other Heads of State?

 

 

[Lehaut]

18 hours ago, Hectorsdad said:

young French children who had undoubtedly been taught in school and probably at home about the events around D Day.

For the 65th anniversary our boys were in a small college in St James, Manche.  There is a very impressive American war cemetery there.  The then Mayor organised the children from the school to go to the cemetery and lay a posey of flowers on the certain graves of US soldiers.  The criteria being that the graves had had no know visitors/flowers placed on them for some years.  This was explained to the children as they performed this simple but (I found) very touching gesture.