Paris (AFP)
"We must continue to perpetuate the memory": 75 years later, history buffs and onlookers have relived Sunday the Liberation of Paris, the sound of sirens and jazz in an emblematic neighborhood events.
Tanks, trucks, jeeps and dozens of uniforms invaded, in this hot Sunday of August, the neighborhood of the Porte d'Orléans, where were entered the troops of the 2nd armored division of General Leclerc, the August 25, 1944.
"It's the Liberation of Paris, it's a turning point," says Michael Hamon, a member of Univem, the National Union of Collectors of Military Vehicles, standing between two vintage vehicles. "The war was far from over but it was the economic capital, the heart of France".
In soldiers' clothing, sailors, members of the Red Cross, factors or in simple Parisians, they are dozens of fans of pageant to come to parade. "We materialize history, in addition to telling it," says Peter, 23, suffocating heat under his paratrooper uniform.
Cindy Rogues, 26, wears the green uniform and the cap of "Rochambelle", these ambulancières attached to the body of the 2nd DB. "We also try to represent women, to remind them that they were fighting the same fight as men, and they were there to help the Liberation."
After a tribute ceremony, a procession rises around 15:30 along the avenue of General Leclerc. A tank moves between two rows of onlookers who take photos on their sidewalks with their smartphones, wave or applaud. Behind a jeep, on which plays a small set of jazz, women, in dresses and vintage hats, walk while dancing, waving French flags.
Invited to decorate their windows, very few residents and traders have however hung flags tricolor. The call to dress in period dress was also not followed very closely: the time is more for shorts and T-shirts than for jackets and dresses of the 1940s.
- "L as Liberation!" -
Nelly, 70, wore a purple beret and moved to "pay homage to her parents, my mother always spoke to me about the Liberation," she says. His father was a prisoner of war and "the prisoners of war arrived at the station by the way L. My mother always said to me, + L like Liberation +!", Smiles the septuagenarian.
Anthony and Camille, 25, say they are "part of a generation that could easily forget." Both policemen came dressed in period dress, to "pay tribute to all the fighters of the Liberation". "All our grandparents are dying, one after the other, so we must continue to perpetuate the memory," said Camille.
"I'm reading + Régine Deforges'" Blue Bicycle + ", a novel that takes place during the Occupation, smiles Christelle, 36, who watches the procession. "Today, it comes back, anti-Semitism, racial violence, we are not immune to conflicts being reborn, so it is important to remember the past, history."
After an hour, the crowd arrived at Denfert-Rochereau Square, where a new Museum of Liberation was inaugurated.
"We show (...) that Paris was and remains the city of freedom," said the mayor of the capital, Anne Hidalgo. A few meters away, a plaque indicates Avenue Rol-Tanguy, named after the colonel who coordinated the Paris insurrection from his underground headquarters under the new museum.
© 2019 AFP