D-Day 80th anniversary: ‘Probably the last time veterans will be present’

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00:00 Well with me here on set in the studio is former French military general Dominique Trincon

00:05 Who is also headed France's military mission to the UN?

00:08 Thanks very much for being with us on the program today.

00:10 Thank you for inviting.

00:11 As a military man yourself, I mean the sheer scale of what was achieved on D-Day is almost impossible to imagine, isn't it?

00:20 Yes, exactly. I mean you've got two sides. You've got the soldiers side, the people who were on board the ships and

00:27 on this morning were just for the first time seeing the French coast and have to fight and to try to be

00:34 safe at the end of the day. And on the leaders side

00:38 the decision

00:41 was very difficult to take the decision as you know the world the

00:45 weather was very bad at that time and they have just a window of a few hours to launch the operation.

00:53 They decided to launch it on the 6th of June because it was already postponed and

00:59 everybody was on ship.

01:01 So it was a very difficult decision to take and to know that a lot of the soldiers will be killed in the few

01:08 first hours. And as James was talking about there the

01:11 emotional events of what's happening today, I mean, why do you think it's so important to remember?

01:17 I think as it was said very important to see that it's

01:21 probably the last time that you've got veterans

01:23 present and

01:26 these people who were there on the first day on D-Day and

01:30 since then have

01:33 several times come back to France, but this time probably

01:37 because they are very old they know that it's the last time they will be there and to think about their

01:44 comrade who were killed at that time.

01:47 Well do stay with us, you're going to be with us for the next couple of hours as we follow that ceremony which begins in

01:51 around 10 to 15 minutes time here on France 24.

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