LONDON — French President Nicolas Sarkozy marked the 70th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle’s defiant World War II broadcast from London on Friday, visiting resistance sites and pledging to use historic ties with Britain to tackle modern challenges.
Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, toured studio B2 at London’s Broadcasting House, the British Broadcasting Corp. complex in central London where de Gaulle urged his compatriots to resist the German occupation.
Sarkozy’s visit comes at a time when Europe is wrestling with economic rather than military challenges. Both he and British Prime Minister David Cameron said past triumphs must be matched by effort to resolve the financial crisis and climate change.
“We come as friends, and friends who remember the past and what France owes you,” Sarkozy told an audience of about 1,500 veterans and dignitaries at London’s Royal Hospital Chelsea, a hospital and retirement center for ex-soldiers.
British and French jets made a ceremonial fly-past through London’s cloudy skies, while red-jacketed veterans and guards in plumed helmets mingled with dignitaries. Soldiers from both countries formed a joint guard of honor.
“Britain and France will be true to those who died for them in the skies above London, in the Libyan desert, on the Normandy beaches and the plain of Alsace, when all that we hold most dear was threatened with annihilation,” Sarkozy told veterans who attended the ceremony. He spoke in French.
De Gaulle’s appeal, which was largely unheard in France when it was initially broadcast and wasn’t recorded, was read aloud at the ceremony. U.K. ministers had initially refused de Gaulle’s request to air his appeal using the BBC’s facilities but relented after the intervention of British wartime leader Winston Churchill.
