He had landed on these beaches seventy-nine years ago, he will have received a vibrant last tribute there. Léon Gautier, the last French hero of the Normandy landings, who died on Monday, was honored on Friday July 7 with a tribute chaired by Emmanuel Macron, who hailed his "so republican" spirit of resistance. "His whole destiny shows us the way to salvation for our homeland," said the head of state.
On the sands of Ouistreham, in Calvados, under a summer sky without a shadow of a cloud, he evoked "the legend of an ordinary man becoming a hero", "embodiment of this spirit of resistance so French and , deep down, so Republican.” A legend "offered as a model", he insisted, recalling that Léon Gautier had said that, just before disembarking, he and his companions had "decided" that they would not re-embark.
It is "in accordance with his wishes and those of his family" that this tribute open to the public took "the form of military honors" on the beach, according to the Elysée. The ceremony took place in the presence of the head of government, Elisabeth Borne, and numerous ministers, including those of the interior, Gérald Darmanin, and of defence, Sébastien Lecornu.
"Driven by an ardent thirst to transmit"
The last member of the Kieffer commando, a battalion of 177 marines who landed on the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944 with the Allies who came to liberate Nazi-occupied France, died Monday in Caen. His first objective was to take the Ouistreham casino bunker.
On June 6, Léon Gautier, "with his bushy eyebrows, his fatigues, and his eternal green commando beret", in the words of Emmanuel Macron, had again been surrounded by the Head of State and the Prime Minister on the nearby beach of Colleville-Montgomery for the 79th anniversary of D-Day. Echoing his journey, his coffin, covered with the French flag, was carried on Friday by other green berets on the Normandy beach.
Born in 1922 in Rennes, he joined London and General De Gaulle in July 1940. He had lived in Ouistreham since the 1990s where he continued, "driven by a burning thirst to transmit", to tell his five years of war to college and high school students, had recalled the Elysée Monday in a tribute.
Beyond the man, the President of the Republic saluted the memory of the 177 members of the Kieffer commando, "of all origins and all conditions". "They were determined to sacrifice their young lives so that an old story, the story of France, continues to be written," he said. “With each of their steps progressed the Republic, that which unites our destinies in the same momentum. With each step France advanced, which never renounces being true to itself,” he added.
