U.S. President Joe Biden touched down on French soil early Wednesday morning ahead of Europe’s D-Day commemorations as Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia continues to roil the continent.
Flying aboard Air Force One, Biden landed at Paris Orly airport to be welcomed by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.
Along with French President Emmanuel Macron, British King Charles III and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, AFP reports Biden will on Thursday salute the heroism of the Allied troops who gave their lives often far from home in the landings on June 6, 1944 to free Europe from Nazi occupation.
It will be a first foreign visit for King Charles since his cancer diagnosis.
President Joe Biden is welcomed by France’s Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, left, and other authorities upon his arrival at Orly airport, south of Paris, Wednesday, June 5, 2024. Biden is in France to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden points into the distance as he arrives Wednesday, June 5, 2024 at Orly airport, south of Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
The sacrifice of Allied soldiers will be centre stage however German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian President Sergio Mattarella will attend as a sign of international post-World-War-II reconciliation, the AFP report details.
As the great and the good honor those who paid the highest price for freedom 80 years ago, the war that has raged in Ukraine since Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion will take centre stage with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also attending and scheduled to meet with Biden, according to the White House.
No official from Russia has been invited, after Paris reversed plans to host lower-level representatives in recognition of the Soviet Union’s immense contribution in World War II.
Candles are lit on each tombstone of the Commonwealth war cemetery of Banneville-La-Campagne, Normandy, France, during a ceremony as part of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)
The most honoured guests will be the surviving veterans: some 200 are expected, a number that is dwindling every year with most at least in their late 90s and some over 100.
The 80th anniversary Thursday will see leaders attend national ceremonies at the vast war cemeteries on the Normandy coast, with an international ceremony attended by all the main guests at Omaha.
On Friday, Biden will give a speech at the Pointe du Hoc — a clifftop promontory whose German bunkers were attacked by U.S. troops in a daring assault during the landings — on defending freedom and democracy, as Breitbart News reports.
U.S. war veteran attend a wreath-laying ceremony at Utah Beach, Wednesday, June 5, 2024 at Utah Beach, Normandy,. World War II veterans from across the United States as well as Britain and Canada are in Normandy this week to mark 80 years since the D-Day landings that helped lead to Hitler’s defeat. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
Biden’s address will focus on Russia at a moment when U.S. weapons could be used, for the first time, by Ukrainian forces to attack targets inside Russian territory — an escalation that could widen the war beyond its current frontier.
In 2021, his first year in the Oval Office, President Biden failed to mention D-Day, spotlighting the Tulsa Race Riots instead, as Joel Pollak of Breitbart News noted.
Macron will also give a keynote speech in Bayeux, the first French town to be liberated.
Biden will continue the trip in Paris Saturday with the first state visit of his presidency to France, giving him and Macron a critical chance to push for peace in Ukraine and also the conflict in Gaza in talks at the Elysee Palace.
Biden departs France for the United States on Sunday.
AFP contributed to this report