On May 8, in Paris, several hundred French and Russians families of veterans responded to a call by a collective of French associations for the 80th anniversary of Victory, acting in cooperation with the Russian committee for the 80th anniversary of Victory against fascism, “to join the civic commemoration to salute the courage of all the men and women who died on the field of honor to bring down Nazism.”
In Paris, the parade, also known as the “March of the Immortal Regiment,” took off from La Place de la République and marched to the Père Lachaise Cemetery to pay tribute to the Soviet soldiers, French and foreign, and to the French and foreign Soviet Resistance fighters who fought or risked their lives to defeat Nazism, as well as to the deported victims of the extermination camps.
People carried photos of their forebears, charismatic heroes or Resistance fighters of all nationalities who fought against Nazism: “Everyone can bring flags of allied countries and flowers to lay on the graves.” said the collective.
Among those invited to address the event, French Colonel Alain Corvez, former secretary general of the Fondation de la France Libre and Jacques Cheminade, President of Solidarité & Progrès, who spoke at the tomb of the monument to Russian service members who fell in the French Resistance during World War II.
On May 7, the eve of Victory Day, Russian Ambassador Alexey Meshkov to France, accompanied by the military attaché, laid a wreath at the monument to Russian service members who fell in the Resistance during the Second World War, located in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The ceremony was attended by Russia’s Permanent Representative to UNESCO Rinat Alyautdinov, and the management of the Russian House of Science and Culture in Paris.
On May 8, Cheminade said the following to the marchers:
