Macron makes rare appearance with ex-PM and Élysée hopeful Edouard Philippe
Emmanuel Macron and his former prime minister Edouard Philippe, who hopes to succeed the French president after the 2027 election, made a rare joint public appearance on Thursday to remember eighty years since the liberation of a French port from Nazi occupation.
The Normandy port of Le Havre was liberated by Allied troops on September 12, 1944, more than three months after the D-Day landings to the west.
But the freeing of Le Havre was shadowed by intense Allied bombardments a week before that devastated the city and left more than 2,000 of its inhabitants dead.
The political symbolism was being watched as closely as the historical references, with reportedly glacial relations between Macron and Philippe, who is now mayor of Le Havre but from 2017 to 2020 was Macron's prime minister, his longest-serving head of government.
Macron said in a speech that Le Havre had never "completely healed" from the bombing, which gave the city "the colour and appearance of ashes, crushed, pulverised".
He said that in contrast to the sheer jubilation felt in Paris when it was liberated in August 1944, Le Havre felt the "infinite suffering of a city sacrificed to liberate its country".
Philippe expressed his "sincere thanks" to Macron for his presence, which showed "the importance that the nation now attatches" to this painful history.
According to the Elysee, this was the first time large-scale ceremonies have been held in Le Havre to mark the liberation, due to the "trauma" caused by the Allied bombardments.
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