It was the first trip to Europe since he called America’s allies there “PATHETIC” in a private Signal group chat, and said that he shared the vice president’s “loathing of European freeloading.”
So there was some anxiety and nervous trepidation about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s visit to the French beaches of Normandy on Friday to commemorate the 81st anniversary of D-Day.
But on this day, delivering a speech before the 9,389 graves of American soldiers lying beneath rows of white crosses in the Normandy American cemetery, all of whom died after the June 6, 1944, assault, Mr. Hegseth offered no offense. He described the successful assault on Nazi-occupied France, which proved a turning point in the war, as a victory of many allied countries, including even the French resistance.
“The enemy underestimated the strength of the Allied war cause,” he said from a podium before a modest international crowd and about two dozen American World War II veterans, most around 100 years old, watching from wheelchairs nearby.
“Without the sacrifices of American, French, British and other Allied powers, we would not have a free world,” he said.
To many, the speech came as a relief. But still, there was an elephant on the perfectly kept cemetery lawn.
D-Day is typically a time to commemorate sacrifice and unity among Allied countries fighting for freedom and liberty against the authoritarianism and tyranny of Nazi Germany.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Ukraine’s resistance has become a central part of the ceremonies as a strong echo from the past. Last year, President Biden vowed that America would not “walk away” from the fight, defending a Ukraine that had been “invaded by a tyrant bent on domination.”
“Were we to do that, it means we’d be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches,” he said. “Make no mistake: We will not bow down. We will not forget.”
However, the Trump administration has a very different view of its allies and the Russian invasion.
President Trump has said the European Union was created to “screw the United States” and is threatening it with 50 percent tariffs. He has blamed Ukraine for a war that Russia started.
On Thursday, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, during a visit to the Oval Office, reminded Mr. Trump of the anniversary of D-Day and pressed him to use American power to force Russia’s retreat. Mr. Trump responded by comparing the war to two fighting children in a hockey game, when the referee lets them “go for a little while before you pull them apart.”
Mr. Hegseth has similarly shown little interest in supporting Ukraine against its Russian invader. On his last trip to Europe, he announced that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was “an unrealistic objective” and ruled out NATO membership for Kyiv.
Almost immediately after being sworn into the job, Mr. Hegseth dumped America’s leadership of the Contact Group — a collection of more than 50 nations to coordinate shipments of military and humanitarian aid to Kyiv. He didn’t show up to the group’s latest meeting this week.
Then, there were his comments on a Signal chat group, created before the American military attack on Houthi militia in Yemen and inadvertently shared with a journalist from The Atlantic.
It all cast a shadow on the annual D-Day ceremony — making an event meant to celebrate friendship and shared values feel, as Denis Peschanski, a French historian, put it, “less comfortable.”
“There was no contradiction between the democratic values upheld by the Biden administration and the historical sacrifice of these Americans, as well as these British, these Canadians, well, all those who landed, and the French who were fighting in the Resistance also for the success of this landing,” said Mr. Peschanski, who was in charge of the 80th anniversary’s scientific advisory board. It was “obvious” that this year’s commemoration would feel awkward without those shared values, he said.
The celebration of what Mr. Hegseth called the “greatest amphibious assault in the history of mankind” was more muted than last year. But that had nothing to do with American foreign policy — 81 isn’t considered as auspicious as 80, and off-round number years rarely draw huge crowds or heads of state.
Still, American and Canadian flags fluttered from hedges, World War II enthusiasts screeched along the narrow roads in vintage jeeps, and ceremonies were planned throughout the 50-mile ribbon of beaches and cliffs.
The directors of museums dedicated to the American landings said they had not seen a dip in visitors this year. But, they had instructed staff members to avoid talking about politics.
“I told them, ‘We don’t talk about that. It’s not our subject.’ We talk about the past and the sacrifice of the American soldiers,” said Charles de Vallavieille, the mayor of Ste.-Marie-du-Mont and the director of the Utah Beach Landing museum. He added, “I hope things calm down and we will return to an easier relationship.”
No mention of American aggression was made by the French defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, either. Instead, he thanked the veterans, saying they embodied the “unique friendship between our two countries.”
To some, Mr. Hegseth’s criticism of the Europe was not entirely off-point, if only because its spine has yet to stiffen sufficiently. “The problem is, he is right. The E.U. is pathetic,” said Gérard Araud, former French ambassador to Washington, referring to Mr. Hegseth’s text. “In face of U.S. hostility from JD Vance and Trump himself and then Hegseth, there is no appetite for retaliation or responding. They are totally terrified at the prospect of the U.S. dumping Ukraine.”
Though European countries are committed to continuing to materially and financially help Ukraine maintain its opposition, most believe American support — particularly in intelligence — is essential.
So, Mr. Araud said of Mr. Hegseth, “everything will be done by the French to seduce him, to try and convince him we are serious on defense and we are working with the Americans and basically, please stay.”
Standing at the front of a crowd gathered for the international ceremony at Utah Beach later on Friday afternoon, one French visitor, Alexandra Brotin, said she would not let politics pollute her feelings about the ceremony for American veterans.
Since 1980, Ms. Brotin and her husband, Patrice, have welcomed American veterans in their home near Ste-Mère-Eglise. Since then, they’ve been part of their family vacations, weddings and even funerals. One of the veterans, Reginald Alexander, had his ashes scattered in the field where he landed as a paratrooper on D-Day.
“Our links are stronger than politics,” said Ms. Brotin, who was attending the ceremony with another veteran American paratrooper staying at her home. “No president can break them.”
Since coming into the office, Mr. Hegseth has focused much of his energy on restoring a “warrior ethos” to the department, which he said had been taken over by “woke,” diversity-obsessed ideologues. That warrior spirit had been on display in Normandy on D-Day, he said in his speech, calling the courage of the more than 150,000 men who had landed on the beaches that day “unfathomable.”
“To walk over, or run if you can, carrying equipment over that open beach as shells and bullets thunder around you again and again, I cannot imagine. Could you do that? Could I? Could we?” he said.
It was a question he said he posed that morning while jogging on one of the two beaches American soldiers attacked 81 years ago with American Army Rangers.
“I ran over more than a few sand castles. That’s what those men fought for. That we may turn scenes of death into scenes of life,” he said. “That together our nations will be strong and free.”
Catherine Porter is an international reporter for The Times, covering France. She is based in Paris.
The post A Different Kind of D-Day, Laden With Anxiety Among Old Allies appeared first on New York Times.
