Speech by Jacques Chirac in Colleville-sur-Mer – 2004
President of the French Republic
60th Anniversary of the Normandy Landings – Official Speeches
Speech delivered on Sunday, June 6, 2004 at the American Military Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer (10:27 a.m.) on the occasion of the Franco-American ceremony.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, Landing Soldiers,
Mr. President of the United States of America,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In this sacred place of human memory, on this sacred ground of our history, the flame of remembrance burns forever. Against the night of oblivion, we are gathered here to pay tribute to the soldiers of Liberty, to the legendary heroes of Operation Overlord. Against the passing of time, we are here together to remind new generations of the meaning of a struggle that still enlightens our consciences.
France will never forget.
It will never forget June 6, 1944, which saw the rebirth of hope. It will never forget those men who made the supreme sacrifice to liberate our soil, our homeland, our continent from the yoke of Nazi barbarity and its murderous madness. She will never forget what she owes to America, her lifelong friend, what she owes to all her Allies, thanks to whom Europe, finally reunified, lives in peace, freedom, and democracy.
Sixty years ago, on these beaches of Normandy, right here, at Omaha Beach, Bloody Omaha, the destiny of France, Europe, and the world was decided. Today, before these aligned crosses, where your comrades, your brothers in arms, fallen on the field of honor, rest for eternity, in silence and contemplation, the same emotion grips us. Our hearts ache before such courage, such self-sacrifice, such generosity. Our spirits soar before the absoluteness of these young people offering the world the breath of their lives.
On behalf of every French woman and every French man, I wish to express the eternal gratitude of our Nation and the unparalleled debt of our democracies. I wish to salute this audacity, this surge of the human soul, which, rejecting the paternity of enslavement, came to shake up History, to elevate Men, Nations, and Peoples. I salute the memory and sacrifice of all these fighters. Overcoming fear, all fears, they raised human conscience to the highest level through the justice of their struggle and the strength of their ideals.
Mr. President of the United States of America, this day of remembrance begins here, in Colleville-sur-Mer, in this cemetery where America forever honors its sons who have also become ours, these children so young who fell for Liberty. To the entire American nation who share with us these moments of reflection, to these women and men who paid the heavy price of these heroic days, I want to express the message of France, that of friendship and fraternity, that of recognition and gratitude.
For more than two hundred years, America and France have shared these humanist values that have formed the basis of their destinies. Our two nations have always shared the same passion for Liberty and Law, Justice and Democracy. These values are deeply rooted in our cultures, in our civilization. They are the genius of our peoples; they are the heart and soul of our Nations. From the plains of Yorktown to the beaches of Normandy, amidst the suffering of the global conflicts that tore apart the past century, our two countries, our two peoples, have spread side by side, in the brotherhood of bloodshed, a certain idea of Man, a certain idea of the World—this idea that is at the heart of the United Nations Charter.
France, which has endured the long ordeal of war and occupation, knows how much it owes to the United States of America, to the commitment of President Roosevelt, and to the actions of General Eisenhower. Everyone, every family in France, cherishes the precious memory of those hours of jubilation that followed D-Day. Everyone also remembers the terrible suffering endured in the battle, first and foremost that of the soldiers, then that of the civilian population.
Today, as yesterday, this friendship, built on trust, high standards, and mutual respect, remains intact. America is our eternal ally, an alliance, a solidarity all the stronger because they were forged during those terrible hours. And when America experiences adversity, when barbarity tragically brings grief to America and the world, like that September 11, 2001, so vivid in our memories and in our hearts, France stands alongside every American man and woman. Their grief is also ours. In awarding the Knight’s Cross of the Legion of Honor to one hundred American veterans present here, whom I salute, I wished, on behalf of all French women and men, to express once again this morning this broad and long-standing friendship and our gratitude.
Ladies and gentlemen, this moment of remembrance also carries a message of peace. The glorious struggle of these men, to whom we pay tribute, is a necessity for the future and a duty for the present. Sixty years ago, the soldiers of Liberty bore arms to ensure the triumph of the values to which all humanity aspires—a vision of humanity, of its dignity, of Peace, of Liberty, of Democracy. And this struggle, this struggle of humanity against itself, remains a constant struggle. Faced with the dangers of our time and our world, this world where violence and hatred too often inflame men and peoples, the message of the heroes of this “longest day,” the torch that our fathers carried so high and passed on to us, are our common heritage; they are our duty—a duty of remembrance, to remember this very recent past where fanaticism, the rejection of difference, the rejection of others, cast children, women, and men into the night and fog of the death camps.
Let us never forget that there is no future without reference points, without fidelity to the lessons of history. A duty of vigilance, to mercilessly combat all these resurgences, all these ferments of hatred that feed on ignorance, obscurantism, and intolerance. Duty of fidelity to our values so that our generation builds and bequeaths to our children this world of progress and freedom to which they are entitled, to build this society of respect and dialogue, of tolerance and solidarity, which was the very essence of the fight that we commemorate so that the wind of hope always blows.”
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