FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron today marked the anniversary of the Allies’ victory over Nazi Germany in World War II (WWII), overshadowed this year by the war in Ukraine.

Paris’ traditional WWII commemorations started in Champs-Elysees, with the president laying a wreath at the statue of Charles de Gaulle, the wartime French resistance leader and later founding president of the Fifth Republic.

Macron reviewed troops before laying a second wreath and reigniting the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe.

With the Covid-19 pandemic easing in France, it is the first time that spectators are permitted since 2019.

Macron will discuss the Ukraine war with G7 leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today, before marking Europe Day in Strasbourg tomorrow and meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin.

Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot told reporters that the ceremonies this year “certainly took on considerable significance” given the outbreak of the invasion.

“We thought war had disappeared from Europe.”

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian tweeted that “we will not forget the soldiers from across the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians and Russians, who contributed to the victory” over Nazi Germany.

“We reject all forms of instrumentalisation and manipulation of the memory of those who gave their lives,” he added.

The Kremlin claims that it is engaged in a “special military operation” aimed at “de-Nazifying” Ukraine, and has banned using the word “war” to describe the fighting in Russian media and social networks.

Kiev and Western governments accuse Russia of war crimes, with Zelenskyy likening the invasion to Nazi Germany’s war of aggression across Europe in a video published on social media today. – AFP, May 8, 2022.