Barack Obama arrived in Normandy

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President Obama and French president Sarkozy

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U.S. President Barack Obama, who arrived Friday evening in Paris where he spends the night, went to Normandy on Saturday where, at Colleville-sur-Mer, near Caen, participate in the commemorations of the 65th anniversary of Allied landings on 6 June 1944 .
It is a tradition for American presidents to go to a point in their mandates, on the Normandy beaches where, during the "day" of the troops had landed American, British and Canadian.

Ronald Reagan went on the beaches of Normandy for the 40th anniversary in 1984, Bill Clinton did the same ten years later. As for George W. Bush, he has visited twice in 2002 and in 2004 for the 60th anniversary.

Obama's visit to France is the latest step in a brief tour that took him first to the Middle East - Saudi Arabia and Egypt - and then in Germany.

It will not be the only man in this State on the beaches of Normandy for the commemorations: Britain will be represented by the crown prince, Charles, Queen Elizabeth was not invited.

The french president Nicolas Sarkozy will host the ceremonies, while in Canada, it will be represented by his Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In Dresden and Buchenwald

Friday, Obama visited the German city of Dresden, severely bombed by Allied aircraft in February 1945, then the former Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald in eastern Germany, where 56,000 people perished.

At Buchenwald, where he was accompanied by Chancellor Angela Merkel and two survivors of the camp, including the Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, Barack Obama introduced a white rose on the memorial of the camp, a metal plate heated to the temperature body raised to the place where the survivors erected a temporary memorial in remembrance of the liberation of Buchenwald in April 1945.

The U.S. president recalled the story of his great uncle Charlie Payne, one of the young GIs who liberated one of the 130 satellite camps of Buchenwald.

"I heard about this place since I was child, about my great uncle who was a very young man during the Second World War," he said referring to the younger brother of her grandmother .

Before Buchenwald, Obama and Merkel had visited Dresden, 200 km away, and the Frauenkirche, a symbol of church bombings in 1945, which was not restored until 2005.

The city, still intact a few months before the end of the war, was devastated by two waves of attacks by British bombers on the night of 13 February 1945. The next day, 311 "flying fortresses" American B-17 raids continued.

The official was 25,000 dead, but many survivors believe that it is heavier, many bodies were burned by incendiary bombs.

English Version by Sidonie Blanc