
🔴Watch live: France marks 80th anniversary of World War II's end in Europe
One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.
To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement.
Eighty years ago, on May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies. While the occasion is commemorated at the Arc de Triomphe every year, Emmanuel Macron has chosen to mark this anniversary in a bigger way, with a special evening ceremony.
Read more'To the bitter end': The Dunkirk pocket of Nazi resistance
The President of the Republic is set to deliver a speech at approximately 6:10pm, followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and a moment of silence before its eternal flame. At 7pm, the elite fighter jets of the French Air Force's Patrouille de France will perform a fly-over of the capital.
Read moreGerman burials of Nazi remains stir controversy over national memory
Click on the liveplayer button above to watch FRANCE 24's special coverage of the commemorative ceremony.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
Polar bear waltz: Fake Trump-Putin AI images shroud Ukraine peace effort
The online fakery -- dubbed widely as AI slop -- underscores how easily artificial intelligence tools can flood the internet with false and satirical content around major global events. These creations also highlight the challenge of policing bogus content as tech platforms offer creators monetization incentives for viral posts. In hundreds of online posts mocking European leaders as powerless mediators snubbed by Trump, one such image purported to show French President Emmanuel Macron and other top officials waiting somberly in a White House corridor with their heads bowed. "This is utter humiliation of these corrupt scumbags. Absolutely beautiful," said one post on X from a conservative political commentator that AFP has previously fact-checked for spreading misinformation about Ukraine. Such posts -- in multiple languages including Greek, German and French -- gained traction as European leaders joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House Monday for talks with Trump following the US president's summit with Putin in Alaska. Red carpet brawl AFP fact-checkers identified visual inconsistencies that indicate the image including Macron was AI-generated. Some of the individuals depicted in the image also do not match those seen in official photographs from the high-stakes meeting. Macron and other European leaders represented a group of Ukraine's allies known as the "Coalition of the Willing" for White House consultations. But multiple pro-Kremlin sources sharing the AI-generated image ridiculed them as the "coalition of those in waiting." The image was also amplified by sites operated by the Pravda network, a well-resourced Moscow-based operation known to circulate pro-Russian narratives globally, the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard said in a report. The falsehood was an illustration of how "pro-Kremlin sources often seize on high-profile meetings involving European leaders to spread false claims," NewsGuard said. In other viral posts, an AI-generated clip purported to show Trump and Putin skidding down snow-covered slopes, eating ice-cream beside a snowman, and waltzing with a polar bear to country music. And in another AI video, Trump and Putin were depicted brawling on a red carpet leading from an airplane staircase, trading punches and kicks as secret service agents idle in the background. The tongue-in-cheek posts offer a window into a social media landscape increasingly filled with AI-generated memes, videos and images competing for attention with -- and sometimes drowning out -- authentic content. As tech platforms scale back content moderation, AI videos spread rapidly, muddying the waters around serious diplomatic efforts to end the three-year war in Ukraine. Trump on Tuesday ruled out sending American troops to back up any Ukraine peace deal but suggested air support instead, as European nations began hashing out security guarantees ahead of a potential Russia summit.


France 24
8 hours ago
- France 24
France slams Netanyahu's claim that recognising Palestinian state is fuelling anti-Semitism
France on Tuesday slammed as "abject" and "erroneous" an accusation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that President Emmanuel Macron 's move to recognise a Palestinian state was fuelling anti-Semitism in his country. France "protects and will always protect its Jewish citizens", Macron's office said, adding that a letter from Netanyahu containing his allegation "will not go unanswered". "This is a time for seriousness and responsibility, not for conflation and manipulation," the French presidency added. Last month, Macron said France would formally recognise a Palestinian state during a UN meeting in September, the first G7 country to do so. The move drew a swift rebuke from Israel. In a letter sent to Macron, seen by AFP, Netanyahu claimed that anti-Semitism had "surged" in France following the announcement. "Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on this anti-Semitic fire. It is not diplomacy, it is appeasement. It rewards Hamas terror, hardens Hamas's refusal to free the hostages, emboldens those who menace French Jews and encourages the Jew-hatred now stalking your streets," Netanyahu wrote in the letter. France is among at least 145 of the 193 UN members that now recognise or plan to recognise a Palestinian state, according to an AFP tally. Australia joined the list earlier this month, announcing its intention to recognise a Palestinian state in September. 02:24 "Violence against the (French) Jewish community is intolerable," the French presidency said. "That is why, beyond criminal convictions, the president has systematically required all his governments since 2017 – and even more so since the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023 – to show the strongest action against perpetrators of anti-Semitic acts," it said. Macron's minister for Europe, Benjamin Haddad, separately said in reaction to Netanyahu's letter that France has "no lessons to learn in the fight against anti-Semitism". The issue "which is poisoning our European societies" must not be "exploited", Haddad added. France is home to Europe's biggest Jewish community. Reported anti-Semitic acts in France surged from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023, before dipping to 1,570 last year, according to the interior ministry.

LeMonde
17 hours ago
- LeMonde
Macron suggests Geneva for Putin-Zelensky peace talks
French President Emmanuel Macron suggested Geneva could play host to a peace summit between Russian and Ukrainian leaders Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, who look set to meet after separate talks with United States President Donald Trump. Speaking after he and other European leaders joined the Ukrainian president for high-stakes meetings at the White House on Monday, August 18, Macron said the announced Zelensky-Putin summit would be held in Europe. "It will be [hosted by] a neutral country, maybe Switzerland – I'm pushing for Geneva – or another country," Macron said in an interview aired Tuesday on French news channel LCI. "The last time there were bilateral talks, they were held in Istanbul," he added, referring to the three rounds of lower-level negotiations between Russia and Ukraine held in Turkey between May and July. Macron said France and Britain would hold a meeting Tuesday with other Ukrainian allies to "keep them up to date on what was decided" in Washington on providing security guarantees for Ukraine, a key talking point in the meetings with Trump. "Right after that, we'll start concrete work with the Americans. So as of [Tuesday], our diplomatic advisers, ministers, chiefs of staff begin work on seeing who's ready to do what." Addressing whether Zelensky would be forced to give up territory to Russia, Macron said it was "up to Ukraine". "Ukraine will make the concessions it deems just and right," he said, adding, "let's be very careful when we talk about legal recognition. (...) If countries (...) can say, 'we can take territory by force,' [that] opens a Pandora's box."