{"id":1011137,"date":"2026-06-07T12:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T12:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1011137\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T12:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T12:01:14","slug":"residents-of-french-village-say-us-defense-chief-hegseth-not-welcome-for-d-day-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1011137\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents of French village say US defense chief Hegseth not welcome for D-Day visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a> on Saturday travelled to Normandy to commemorate<\/a> the 82nd anniversary of the World War II<\/a> D-Day landings.<\/p>\n

But after making a speech<\/a> at the American military<\/a> cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, he conspicuously skipped afternoon\u2019s main international ceremony marking the anniversary of the Allied landings, which helped herald the end of World War II.<\/p>\n

His presence was not missed by some residents of the village hosting the ceremony, Langrune-sur-Mer, who said the US official was not welcome there<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“He has very warlike views and it seems to us that this man does not share our democratic values,” Sylvie Lamy Thepaut, a member of the municipal association Langrune en commun,\u00a0told BFM TV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A message on the association\u2019s website called for Hegseth\u2019s visit to be cancelled<\/a> on the grounds that the Pentagon<\/a> chief \u201cespouses values contrary to democracy, human rights<\/a>\u00a0and peace\u201d and had made \u201cnumerous anti-European remarks\u201d, \u201cwarlike statements\u201d and \u201cAmerican supremacist pronouncements”.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe honor of Langrune, that of France<\/a>, and the memory of the young Allied soldiers\u00a0\u2013 American, British, Canadian \u2013 who died on our beaches in the name of democracy would dictate canceling this individual\u2019s visit,\u201d the statement concluded.<\/p>\n

Langrune-sur-Mer Mayor Franck Jouy declined to comment on Hegseth’s visit, underscoring that the event was a memorial.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are here for a commemmoration and I don\u2019t want to make it political,\u201d he told BFMTV<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m here to remember the people who came to make sure that France was liberated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attendees of Saturday\u2019s ceremony in Langrune-sur-Mer included veterans from the United States and British Defence Minister John Healey, who hailed the “resilience” of the UK<\/a> during the war and US allies as “this great people, friends of liberty”.<\/p>\n

French Prime Minister S\u00e9bastien Lecornu<\/a> paid tribute to the “3,000 men, barely 20 years old”, who died on D-Day, offering “the breath of their youth and the sacrifice of their lives”.<\/p>\n

In his earlier speech at the American military cemetery, Hegseth utilised\u00a0dehumanising<\/a> anti-immigrant rhetoric, urging Europe to counter what he termed an “invasion” of its coastline by migrants.<\/p>\n

Echoing the rhetoric of the US administration, he also called on European countries to do more to contribute to their own defence. European defence spending has been on the rise<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read moreHegseth blasts \u2018invasion\u2019 of migrants on Europe\u2019s beaches in D-Day speech in France<\/a><\/p>\n

In an apparent reference to European defence initiatives, Lecornu said the continent had to meet “the challenge of our generation” to build “our autonomy, our capacity to defend ourselves” to face threats that are “getting closer, intensifying and multiplying”.<\/p>\n

The Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, were the largest amphibious operation in history.<\/p>\n

An armada of 6,939 ships and 132,700 British, Canadian, American, Belgian, Norwegian and Polish troops stormed 80 kilometres (50 miles) of beaches in northern France.<\/p>\n

The operation contributed decisively to the Allied victory over Nazi Germany<\/a>, which was also being squeezed by USSR forces to the east.<\/p>\n

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday travelled to Normandy to commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1011138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[280114,36,13,12,602,12338,14,659,12873],"class_list":["post-1011137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-d-day-commemorations","tag-france","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-sebastien-lecornu","tag-top-stories","tag-usa","tag-world-war-ii"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116708723009283520","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1011138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}