On May 8, Philippe Leonelli recalled the scale of the sacrifice made for freedom

On May 8, dozens of flag-bearers, veterans, elected officials, and citizens gathered under a spring sun in front of the war memorial on the esplanade de Lattre de Tassigny. The ceremony, led by deputy Philippe Vandevelde, marked the 80th anniversary of the German surrender and paid tribute to "the victory of the United Nations and the victory of France", in the words of général de Gaulle quoted by mayor Philippe Leonelli.

In an emotion-filled speech, the mayor recalled that "more than 50 million human beings perished during this terrible war", not counting the 35 million wounded and millions missing. Listing the dates of the liberation of the extermination camps—Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, and Dachau—he stressed that "the liberation of the Mauthausen camp on May 5, 1945, put a definitive end to the concentration camp system", the main instrument of Nazi terror.

Philippe Leonelli also praised the courage of the survivors who agreed to testify "after years of silence" so that the unspeakable could finally be named, echoing the famous words of Simone Veil: "If we did not speak about it, it is because people did not want to hear us". This silence, he continued, "is also a language and a weapon" that we must know how to hear in order to "build the desire for memory".

In front of school children who came to lay tricolor bouquets, the mayor insisted on the necessary vigilance in the face of the resurgence of ideologies of hatred: "Let us remember all those who disappeared (...), those who shut themselves in silence, but let us also remember those who never spoke".

Quoting the resistance fighter Pierre Brossolette—"What our dead expect from us is not a sob but a momentum"—he called on the young generation to "continue to tell of the horror so that it never happens again". The ceremony ended with a minute of silence, la Marseillaise performed by the Harmonie municipale, and the mayor's final triple cry: "Long live Peace, long live the Republic, and long live France!

» NOTE... In the presence of: Philippe Vandevelde, deputy for patriotic ceremonies and master of ceremonies, elected officials, presidents of veterans' associations, representatives of memorial associations, flag-bearers.