National Resistance Day

As part of the commemorations of the centenary of the Battle of Lys, the Portuguese President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, accompanied by the country’s prime minister António Costa, attended several ceremonies held in France on 8 and 9 April 2018.

We are in Stuttgart, 1945. Let’s for a moment forget this off-camera shot to explore how this photo pays tribute to the “Normandy-Niemen” regiment, the most decorated fighter group in French aviation history, whose first victories were won in April 1943 and their last exactly two years later.

In April 2018, on the centenary of the recapture by the Australians of the town of Villers-Bretonneux, the Sir John Monash Centre is set to open, forming part of the Australian Remembrance Trail.

Three years ago, the Liberation Route Europe Foundation opened a Europe-wide remembrance trail, taking visitors in the footsteps of the Allied soldiers. On the eve of the 75th anniversary of Liberation, the different partners involved are preparing to receive visitors in their droves.

Interview with Marie-Eve Vaillancourt

In recent years, there has been a step change in public awareness of the sacrifices made by servicemen and women deployed on overseas operations, especially with State memorial services for personnel killed on operations. But these dramatic events are not new. The time separating us from the first overseas operations offers researchers today the distance they need to interrogate this recent memory still under construction.

Combating racism and anti-Semitism

National day commemorating General de Gaulle’s historic appeal to the French people to refuse to accept defeat and continue the fight against the enemy.

Article: Mont Valérien, a major national remembrance site

The National Day of Remembrance of the victims of racist and anti-Semitic persecutions by the French State and of tribute to the righteous of France

We pay tribute to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics with this photograph of a cross-country skiing race in the Jura, dating from the very end of the bitterly cold winter of 1939-40.

Following several years of political instability and financial crisis in Mexico, in 1861 President Benito Juárez suspended the repayment of loans to the European powers. At the news, the Europeans (France, Great Britain and Spain), encouraged by the conservatives who had been badly treated by Juárez’s liberal regime, decided to intervene militarily.

This photo puts the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, currently in the final stages of renovation at Toulon, in the spotlight. Paris city council’s patronage of the vessel has given three classes of middle and high school students the opportunity to learn about the ship, and thus also about defence issues and careers. The youngsters will visit Toulon on 5 and 6 March.

There is no single legal framework for overseas operations, nor even a single legal definition. For over 50 years, France has been involved militarily in theatres of operations that have led to conflicts and interventions of a varied nature, requiring the legal framework to be adapted. In addition, from the decision being taken by the head of State, head of the armed forces, to the overseas operation getting under way, the law is present at every stage, whether to justify the use of force, plan the action or protect the troops.

In 2015, in an exceptional operational context, the armed forces command underwent a major transformation, with the ministry's separate commands and services being transferred to a single address, in Balard, in Paris's 15th arrondissement. Since then, the Chief of the General Staff has had his whole command team gathered around him in one place, and the Centre for Planning and Execution of Operations is at the heart of this new command headquarters.

In Iraq, Syria, Sahel, the Gulf of Guinea and Somalia, with a UN mandate and acting alongside its NATO or EU partners, France mobilises troops, material and equipment to carry out peacekeeping or humanitarian missions, fight terrorism or protect French nationals. Part of our history, French overseas operations continue to make the headlines today.

From 1963 to the present, dozens of overseas operations have been carried out, involving military personnel from across all the armed forces, directorates and services: army, navy, air force, joint armed forces directorates and services, and Gendarmerie Nationale. By telling the story of certain military operations of recent decades and the reasons that led to France’s involvement in these foreign theatres, a genuine history of French overseas operations, or ‘OPEX’, can be written.