US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday travelled to Normandy to commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the World War II D-Day landings.
But after making a speech at the American military cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, he conspicuously skipped afternoon’s main international ceremony marking the anniversary of the Allied landings, which helped herald the end of World War II.
His presence was not missed by some residents of the village hosting the ceremony, Langrune-sur-Mer, who said the US official was not welcome there.
"He has very warlike views and it seems to us that this man does not share our democratic values," Sylvie Lamy Thepaut, a member of the municipal association Langrune en commun, told BFM TV.
A message on the association’s website called for Hegseth’s visit to be cancelled on the grounds that the Pentagon chief “espouses values contrary to democracy, human rights and peace” and had made “numerous anti-European remarks”, “warlike statements” and “American supremacist pronouncements".
“The honor of Langrune, that of France, and the memory of the young Allied soldiers – American, British, Canadian – who died on our beaches in the name of democracy would dictate canceling this individual’s visit,” the statement concluded.
Langrune-sur-Mer Mayor Franck Jouy declined to comment on Hegseth's visit, underscoring that the event was a memorial.
“We are here for a commemmoration and I don’t want to make it political,” he told BFMTV. “I’m here to remember the people who came to make sure that France was liberated.”
Attendees of Saturday’s ceremony in Langrune-sur-Mer included veterans from the United States and British Defence Minister John Healey, who hailed the "resilience" of the UK during the war and US allies as "this great people, friends of liberty".
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu paid tribute to the "3,000 men, barely 20 years old", who died on D-Day, offering "the breath of their youth and the sacrifice of their lives".
In his earlier speech at the American military cemetery, Hegseth utilised dehumanising anti-immigrant rhetoric, urging Europe to counter what he termed an "invasion" of its coastline by migrants.
Echoing the rhetoric of the US administration, he also called on European countries to do more to contribute to their own defence. European defence spending has been on the rise.
Read moreHegseth blasts ‘invasion’ of migrants on Europe’s beaches in D-Day speech in France
In an apparent reference to European defence initiatives, Lecornu said the continent had to meet "the challenge of our generation" to build "our autonomy, our capacity to defend ourselves" to face threats that are "getting closer, intensifying and multiplying".
The Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, were the largest amphibious operation in history.
An armada of 6,939 ships and 132,700 British, Canadian, American, Belgian, Norwegian and Polish troops stormed 80 kilometres (50 miles) of beaches in northern France.
The operation contributed decisively to the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, which was also being squeezed by USSR forces to the east.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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