Biden asks his compatriots to recommit to democracy in speech in Normandy

Near the cliff that U.S. Army Rangers scaled 80 years ago on D-Day, President Joe Biden on Friday compared the threats posed by Nazi Germany to those the world faces today from dictators and authoritarianism.

Biden’s speech in Normandy, his second in as many days, was intended to reinforce support for Ukraine, but was also expected to be a rebuke to the isolationist leanings of Donald Trump, his rival in the November 5 presidential election.

Biden urged Americans to remember the Rangers whose dramatic heroism on D-Day contributed to the success of the invasion.

“As we gather here today, it is not only to honor those who showed such remarkable bravery that day, June 6, 1944,” Biden said. “It is to hear the echo of their voices. To hear them (…) They are not asking us to climb these cliffs. They are asking us to be faithful to what the United States represents.”

On June 6, 1944, Rangers scaled the 100-foot cliffs overlooking Omaha Beach under searing fire and seized German artillery pieces that could have been fired at American troops landing there and at nearby Utah Beach.

By setting his speech at Pointe du Hoc, Biden echoed the words of his Republican predecessor Ronald Reagan, who celebrated the anniversary of D-Day there 40 years ago. Reagan said that “democracy was worth dying for” and insisted on the United States’ desire for peace in what became the final years of the Cold War.

Biden’s goal was to draw a “dividing line” from World War II, connecting the Cold War, the establishment of the NATO military alliance and Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine, the White House national security adviser said. , Jake Sullivan.

Biden is in the midst of a five-day trip to France, a rare foreign excursion during an election year in which he faces a tight race against Republican Trump, who has threatened to use a second four-year term to punish to his political rivals, deport immigrants and endanger global alliances.

[Con información de Reuters]

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