On BFM TV for the 75th anniversary celebrations of the D-Day

France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada celebrated the 75th anniversary of the landing on June 6, 2019. A commemoration that comes at a time when the old alliances are breaking up between Brexit, tensions with Russia, and Donald Trump’s cold relations with the United States. Yves Bertoncini, President of the European Movement – France was invited to the BFM platform to analyse these celebrations in the light of the current European and international context.

Yves Bertoncini underlines the paradox of the situation: “We celebrate with our two partners, the United Kingdom and the United States, the moment when they saved us, when they are leaving us”. He explained that current relations between France and the United States are indeed stretching, hence the importance “to pay tribute to these veterans and to remember the sacrifice of these soldiers, especially when things are not going very well”.

But the attitude of the American President is not surprising for Yves Bertoncini, who reminds us that “Trump embodies today what has long existed in the United States: an isolationist tendency”. However, Emmanuel Macron insisted in his speech on another facet of the United States, “a form of universalist messianism” in Yves Bertoncini’s words, which states that in the United States “there has always been a swing between the open sea and the continent”. For the President of the European Movement – France, “Emmanuel Macron wanted to insist on this other American trend to find a kind of balance that Trump has now totally broken”.

The absence of Putin, a sign of strained relations?

For Yves Bertoncini, it is not a form of opposition, it is above all a question of context: “Putin was there for the 70 years, he is not there for the 75 years, and the Soviets contributed to the liberation but not to the landing”. Moreover, at the same time, Putin received the Chinese President, for Yves Bertoncini it is a way of “making it clear that while we are commemorating the past, he is looking after the future with another great power”.

Asked during the commemorations by a citizen, Emmanuel Macron promised to continue to be present in the field. An attitude that the President of the European Movement – France considers “all the more necessary as we are in a country where the President is not accountable”, which is not the case in other countries such as Germany. Yves Bertoncini explains that in France “we have a perfectly legitimate republican monarch but who lacks a transmission belt, so it is necessary for him to be accountable”.