French mayor has insulted the memory of hundreds of British soldiers who died liberating his village by displaying a portrait of a notorious Nazi collaborator.Bernard Hoye, civic leader of Gonneville-sur-Mer, in Normandy, insists on honouring Philippe Petain, the Vichy leader who brought shame on his country during the Second World War.
This is despite the fact that British commandoes including the Royal Marines and SAS spent days fighting off the town's German garrison in the weeks after D-Day.
Now Christian Leyrit, the Lower Normandy prefect - or government representative - has written to Mr Hoye 'in the strongest possible terms' telling him to remove Petain's picture 'immediately'.
'This portrait cannot be placed alongside the official portraits hung in a town hall, which is a highly symbolic place for the French Republic,' Mr Leyrit wrote.
Mr Leyrit's words reflect growing disgust at an attempt by some French people to try and rehabilitate the memory of Petain, who was a Gallic hero during the First World War.Petain was imprisoned after the 1944 liberation of France after setting up a pro-Nazi regime in the spa town of Vichy, effectively abolishing the French Republic to become a German slave state, collaborating in everything including the persecution of the Jews. Petain died in disgrace in 1951.
Daily Mail
Daily Mail
