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The liberation of Lorraine

Des hommes de la 5e et de la 65e division d'infantrie US se serrent la main après avoir effectué leur jonction devant Metz, le 22 novembre 1944. Copyright US NARA

The liberation of Caen.

The first British troops in Caen pose with the residents in front of the devastated shops.

The Allies had predicted that the great Normandy city of Caen, a major crossroads, would be taken on D-Day. But at the beginning of July 1944, Caen still had not been liberated.

Canada in World War II

Canadian infantry landing at Juno Beach and marching toward Bernières-sur-Mer, 6 June 1944.

L'infanterie canadienne débarque sur la plage de Juno Beach et marche en direction de Bernières-sur-Mer, le 6 juin 1944. Source Archives Nationales du Canada.

On 7 September 1939, the Canadian Parliament met in a special session and two days later gave its support to Great Britain and France, which had been at war with Germany since 3 September.

Normandy - Falaise Pocket

Canadian soldiers entering the city of Falaise. Source: Basse-Normandie Regional Council / National Archives of Canada

Nearly surrounded and under pressure from all sides, two German armies organised their retreat during the Battle of the Falaise Pocket.

Arromanches harbour

Aerial view of Mulberry artificial harbour at Arromanches, September 1944. Source: Imperial War Museum

New Caledonia in the two World Wars

Noumea, departure for La Grange, 4 June 1916 © Noumea City Museum

As was the case for all of France and the French Empire, New Caledonia, one of France's principal possessions in the Pacific, played a role that remains mostly unknown in France today but was nonetheless important, or even crucial, at certain points during the World Wars, especially in the Pacific operations during World War II.

Jean de Lattre de Tassigny

Le général de Lattre acclamé par la population de Colmar. Source : ECPAD

At the beginning of the Second World War (1939-45), Jean de Lattre de Tassigny was France's youngest general.

After the signing of the armistice, on 22 June 1940, he set about planning to overcome the Nazi occupier, under the motto Ne pas subir ('Never give in'). His rallying to General de Gaulle's Free France took him to Algiers, which he left with his army in 1944 to liberate France, from Provence to the Rhine.

On 9 May 1945, de Lattre was present in Berlin, alongside the Allies, to sign, on behalf of France, the official act of surrender of Nazi Germany.

Battles of Saint-Marcel

Operation zones of the SAS and the resistance movements (maquis) in Brittany. Source: GNU Free Documentation License.

The battles in Saint-Marcel marked an important turn of events in Brittany's Resistance movement.

Le Vercors

Flag of the Vercors Free Republic (June-July 1944). Source: Creative Commons Licence

In 1940, Le Vercors, a genuine natural fortress, sixty kilometres long and 30 wide, at an altitude of over 2,340 m between L'Isère and La Drôme, was a place of refuge especially for victims of the Vichy Government's political and racial discrimination measures.

11 November 1943

Garde d'honneur du drapeau tricolore. ©Collection Musée Départemental d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation - Ain.

Seventy years ago, on 11 November 1943, Captain Romans-Petit, leader of the Maquis of Ain and Haut-Jura, organised a military parade in Oyonnax to mark the 11th November and to show the Germans the strength and discipline of the Resistance.

Memory of the Harkis

Plaque affixed to the war memorial for all wars in Montpellier. (Hérault 34). Source: © ONACVG de l'Hérault

The Norwegian campaign (9 April - 7 June 1940)

Chasseurs en route pour la Norvège.
Source : ECPAD France

History

Right from the start of the Second World War, Norway attracted the attention of the belligerents. It lay at a strategic maritime crossroads, its fjords could accommodate a large fleet, and iron ore from Swedish Lapland, potentially invaluable to the German war effort, passed through the port of Narvik.

First world war places of remembrance

American monument in Meaux, detail. Source: Musée de la Grande Guerre

The Memorial heritage of Paris and its greater region is not particularly rich in monuments relating to the memory of the first world war since Paris was not directly concerned by the fighting. Paris did not experience the war so few monuments concern military operations.

Operation Jubilee, Dieppe – 19 August 1942

The port of Dieppe and the cliffs seen from beach at Puys, 2002. Source: Private collection

With the German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the Japanese aggression on the American base at Pearl Harbor the following 7 December and the United States' subsequent entry into the war, the conflict became a World War.

National Deportation Day

Memorial to the Martyrs of Deportation©guardindustrie.com

Le Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation

Protecting our memorial heritage

Fréjus (on left) - Tunisia (on right)

The origins of remembrance tourism

Between the 17th and the 20th centuries, France was the site of a great number
of armed conflicts which left behind many remnants as a lasting legacy.

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

The monument erected near the Vélodrome d'Hiver, in Paris. Source: MINDEF/SGA/DMPA

The Battle of Bir Hakeim

French Legionnaires attack an enemy position at Bir Hakeim, 12 June 1942. Source: Imperial War Museum.

Between 26 May and 11 June 1942, the 1st Free French Brigade (1st BFL) faced the Afrika Korps and its Italian allies on the Libyan front. It did not fall back from its position at Bir Hakeim until it had secured the withdrawal of British troops.

NN – Deportees sentenced to vanish

The call, drawing by Rudolf Naess, a Norwegian NN deportee. Source: National Library of Norway, Oslo division-War collection

NN - Deportees sentenced to vanish into the night and fog (1941 - 1944)

The German expression NN means ”Nacht und Nebel”, or ”Night and Fog”.

This expression reflects Hitler's decision to sentence all opponents to the Nazi regime, men and women, to die in isolation and with no defence. The special treatment reserved to these deportees also aimed to eliminate them totally, i.e. to erase any trace of their existence and their death, like shadows swallowed up by the night and fog.

Battle of Dien Bien Phu

Dien Bien Phu camp, French paratroopers in a trench. Source: ECPAD France

France had been at war with Indochina since 1946 in its efforts to defeat the Viet Minh led by communist Ho Chi Minh who wanted independence for the country. The French Far East Expeditionary Corps (CEFEO) attempted to stop the Viet Minh troops advancing to Laos from 1952, notably by installing a fortified air-land base to break the enemy forces.

The first fortified camp was set up in Na San between October 1952 and August 1953. As the forces led by General Giap, a general in the Viet Minh army, furthered their advancement, the French command decided to build a second camp in Dien Bien Phu.

Dien Bien Phu. Source: ECPAD France