France Marks 80 Years Since Strasbourg's WWII Liberation
Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published November 23, 2024 | 05:20 PM
Strasbourg, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Nov, 2024) French President Emmanuel Macron marked on Saturday the 80th anniversary of Free French troops liberating the eastern city of Strasbourg from Nazi occupation.
He was also slated later on Saturday to honour overlooked victims of World War II.
The president reviewed troops and attended a military ceremony at the Broglie Square in central Strasbourg, bowing before a monument to General Philippe Leclerc who led Free French troops into the city on November 23, 1944.
"When we knew the flag was up on the cathedral, we had reached our objective -- freedom, freeing Alsace, a province dear to the heart of the Second Armoured Division," said Roger Le Neures, a 101-year-old veteran of the fight present at the ceremony.
The general, who commanded the Second Armoured Division, and his men had sworn three years earlier while fighting in Libya to one day liberate Alsace.
France's colours flew from the cathedral's spire during the ceremony in homage to the city's liberators.
Macron was also scheduled to visit Natzweiler-Struthof, around 60 kilometres (40 miles) west of Strasbourg, the only concentration camp built by the Nazis on French soil.
His Elysee Palace office said that Macron would give a speech later on Saturday at Strasbourg University, touching both on Alsace's resistance to the Nazis and the territory's liberation, and on the tens of thousands of Alsatian men forcibly enlisted into the German army.
