64th anniversary of the victory of 8 May 1945 – Speech by Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republic (excerpts)
La Nartelle, 8 May 2009
This 8 May we are gathered here to commemorate the end of the Second World War.
This is the opportunity for each of us to remember once again what – after so much bloodshed, so many tears and so much pain – peace has brought us.
For centuries, Europe’s fate was sealed by the spirit of revenge. For centuries, every war spawned the next, murder begat murder and suffering demanded vengeance.
On 8 May we celebrate not just our country’s liberation, not just the victory over Nazism. On 8 May we also celebrate a victory over ourselves.
Forget nothing, but hate no more: this is how those who were great in war were still greater in peace.
We can appreciate this greatness only by not forgetting, ourselves, what they endured and what they achieved by fighting at the risk of their lives.
We must hate war with its attendant horrors and suffering. We must hate war, which is absurd.
But we must pay tribute to those for whom the fatal spiral of acts of murderous folly left no choice but to take up arms to defend the noblest human values. (…)
Soldiers of the Free French and the shadow army, the Resistance – they were heroes.
I wanted this year’s commemoration of 8 May to take place here, in Sainte-Maxime, to pay special tribute to those heroes who on 15 August 1944 landed on the beaches, your beaches, these beaches.
That day at 3.30 a.m. the bombardment started.
At 4.30 a.m. the parachutists dropped into Le May and occupied it.
At 5.30 a.m. the four hundred guns of 250 warships opened fire on the German positions.
60,000 troops prepared to rush between Cap Nègre and Saint-Raphael.
The landing troops were American and French. And among them – I want to pay special tribute to them – were Spahis, Moroccan Tabors and Senegalese infantrymen.
The Resistance were waiting for them. For weeks they had been preparing for D-Day with the Allied Staff. Their help was going to be decisive.
The advance was swift.
On 17 August, the Allies had already established a 70 km long and 20 km deep bridgehead.
On 28 August, Marseille and Toulon were liberated.
250,000 French soldiers were deployed in these operations. With the 114,000 Free French reinforcements, they were to form the French First Army who, with de Lattre, were to liberate Alsace and push the German Army back to the Danube.
To these soldiers who had fought so well, General de Tassingy, Commander-in-Chief of the French First Army, was to say on VE Day: "you did your duty and at times more than your duty".
The Provence landing did not decide the outcome of the war, but it played an absolutely crucial role in France’s participation in the final victory.
From Bir Hakeim and Koufra and Monte Cassino, a handful of fighters, whose ranks were to swell continuously and become an army, covered themselves with glory on every battlefield.
But it’s here, on the Provence beaches, that the reconquest of France by France really began. In Normandy, the allies were the main force. In Provence the French troops provided the bulk of the effort. Many of them fought in Italy. They were reinforced by the colonial infantry division and two armoured divisions.
The colonial troops displayed admirable courage. Throughout the time they were fighting with the epic First Army, they fought for France as if they were fighting for their mother country. They spared neither their pain, nor their blood. France will never forget their sacrifice.
France will never forget the American soldiers who fell at their side on these beaches. And on 6 June we shall celebrate their memory with President Obama’s visit to France.
France will never forget the Allied soldiers lying on the soil of Normandy.
(…)
We have to teach our children not to be prisoners of the past. But we must also teach our children to be proud of their country, to be proud of France, of the great, noble, fine achievements of the preceding generations.
We must show them the example of those young French men and women who sacrificed themselves for a cause which to them seemed greater than their own lives. It’s thanks to all those martyrs that today we are a free people. We can’t forget that sacrifice and what we owe them.
I want to pay tribute to the veterans of that horrendous war who at a tragic moment in our history had the strength and courage to say "no".
I want to tell them that what they did must not just figure in the history books. What they did must go on being part of our country’s living memory.
Free France, the Resistance, they are part of our national identity. The expression of our most noble and understandable values.
To hate no more, but forget nothing…
So that tomorrow we do not "passively endure".
Long live the Republic!
Long live France!./.