(5 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS VIA AGENCY POOL (REUTERS)
Saint-Lo, France – 5 June 2024
1. Various of French President Emmanuel Macron arriving at ceremony, shaking hands and walking with people
2. Wide of ceremony
3. SOUNDBITE (French) Emmanuel Macron, French President:
"The bombs that were dropped on that night (June 6 and 7, 1944) were those of the Allies. American and British planes targeted Saint-Lo because as part of a big plan to neutralize transport routes aiming to prevent German reinforcements from arriving to repel the D-Day landings."
4. Cutaway of event
5. SOUNDBITE (French) Emmanuel Macron, French President:
"Eight decades later the nation has to recognize with clarity and strength the civilian victims of Allied bombing in Normandy and elsewhere on our land. We must bring this memory into light and look at our history as those two orphans were looking at their destroyed town with sadness and lucidity."
6. Mid of Macron listening to French national anthem
7. Zoom out of doves being released
STORYLINE:
French President Emmanuel Macron paid homage to civilian victims in commemorations in Saint-Lo on Wednesday, recalling how the Normandy town became emblematic of losses from Allied bombing when it was razed on June 6 and 7, 1944.
Macron said Saint-Lo was “a necessary target" because Allied bombers were aiming to prevent German reinforcements from reaching the invasion beaches and described it as "a martyred town sacrificed to liberate France.”
The 80th anniversary this week of the Allied invasion on D-Day that punched through Hitler’s western defenses and helped precipitate Nazi Germany’s surrender 11 months later brings mixed emotions for French survivors of the Battle of Normandy.
They remain eternally grateful for their liberation but cannot forget its steep cost in French lives.
Some 20,000 Normandy civilians were killed in the invasion and as Allied forces fought their way inland, sometimes field-by-field through the leafy Normandy countryside that helped conceal German defenders.
"Eight decades later the nation has to recognize with clarity and strength the civilian victims of Allied bombing in Normandy and elsewhere on our land," said Macron.
Allied casualties in the Normandy campaign were also appalling, with 73,000 troops killed and 153,000 wounded.
The list of Normandy towns left ruined and counting their dead grew with the Allied advances: Argentan, Aunay-sur-Odon, Condé-sur-Noireau, Coutances, Falaise, Flers, Lisieux, Vimoutiers, Vire and others.
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