Paris (France) (AFP)

Emmanuel Macron celebrates Thursday, in Paris and then in London, the 80th anniversary of the June 18 appeal of Charles de Gaulle, the occasion for him to call for the unity of the nation, when all his opponents are fighting over the legacy of the general.

To start this day under the sign of Franco-British friendship, he will go to the Invalides, for a visit to the Liberation Museum. There he will meet Hubert Germain, 99, one of the last four Companions of the Liberation, who is a boarder at the Invalides.

The Head of State will then attend the traditional ceremony at the Mont Valérien memorial, the main place of execution of resistance fighters and hostages during the Second World War. He will be there notably with his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, but without an audience, due to health precautions.

The Patrouille de France and the Red Arrows of the Royal Air Force will fly over Mont Valérien and the statue of Winston Churchill in front of the Petit Palais.

With a small delegation, he will then fly to London - where the quarantine requirement for foreign visitors exempts diplomatic visits - to pay homage to the city which was the capital of Free France.

It will be his first trip abroad since his visit to Naples on February 27 for an Italian-French summit.

In the presence of Prince Charles, Mr. Macron will deliver the Legion of Honor to the city of London, the seventh thus decorated after Algiers, Belgrade, Brazzaville, Liège, Luxembourg and Volgograd.

The day after his arrival in London, de Gaulle had called on the French military, engineers and workers to join him to continue the fight against Nazi Germany, despite the armistice requested by Marshal Pétain.

"Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance must not go out and will not go out," he said in concluding his speech.

The visit comes as London and Brussels try to unblock negotiations for a post-Brexit relationship between the UK and the European Union after the end of the transition period on December 31.

Emmanuel Macron will be received at Clarence House, residence of Prince Charles, heir to the British crown, and his wife Camilla. The head of state will conclude his visit with an interview with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, where Brexit negotiations should be on the menu.

This trip will be for the Head of State the second event in the framework of "the year of Gaulle" after the celebration, on May 17, of the 80th anniversary of the battle of Montcornet (Aisne) and before the 50th anniversary of the death of the general in Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises on November 9.

- All of Gaulle -

Emmanuel Macron is not the only one to claim to be General de Gaulle, in particular as the defender of "sovereignty" of France, a word now used by the entire political class.

Until Marine Le Pen, the president of the National Rally, whose party has long fought the general on behalf of French Algeria, who went on Wednesday to the island of Sein to commemorate the call, one day in advance.

Citing as an example her defense of the independence of France, the already declared presidential candidate of 2022 now believes that the RN is the true heir to De Gaulle's values.

But she failed to pay tribute to De Gaulle on Thursday, at the same time as that of the President of the Republic at Mont Valérien.

Faced with hostility from the mayor and residents who wanted to protest against his arrival, she finally advanced by one day her round trip on the island, where she discreetly arrived under a few invective and from where she left two hours later after his speech, in a zodiac.

The other right parties also claim to be De Gaulle, starting with LR for whom the general is "the DNA of our family", explained the party boss Christian Jacob, who will lay a wreath at Mont Valérien.

And on the left, we greet in de Gaulle a man who "never joined the invisible hand of the market, and preferred planning", according to Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

© 2020 AFP