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Radio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale
National
RFI

Last remaining French D-day veteran Léon Gautier dies at 100

Léon Gautier pictured on 15 April, 2014, on the Sword beach, Colleville-Montgomery, where he landed on June 6, 1944, with 177 other men of the Kieffer commando, during Operation Overlord. AFP - JOEL SAGET

Leon Gautier, the last surviving Frenchman to participate in the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944, died Monday aged 100, local authorities said.

Gautier was among 177 Frenchmen who took part in the landings on 6 June, 1944, which marked the start of a rollback of Nazi Germany's domination of western Europe.

He belonged to the Kieffer commando, made up of French fighters who continued to battle the Nazis alongside the US, Britain and other Allied forces even after the French government surrendered to Germany in 1940.

His death in hospital in Caen was announced Monday by Romain Bail, the mayor of Ouistreham, an English Channel coastal community where Allies landed and where Gautier lived out his last years.

Admiral Vandier, Chief of Staff of the French Navy, wrote on Twitter : "I bow to the memory of Léon Gautier ... Having joined the Navy aged 17, this hero of the Liberation was a tireless torch-bearer for service to France."

The landings on 6 June, 1944, known as D-Day, were the largest amphibious wartime operation ever.

The assault was led by US, British and Canadian troops, with a smaller participation of Australian, Belgian, Czech, Dutch, French, Greek, New Zealand, Norwegian, Rhodesian and Polish troops.

Some 18,000 paratroopers were dropped into the invasion area, and Allied air forces provided air support for thousands of naval vessels carrying more than 130,000 ground troops in the landings.

Over 4,000 Allied troops died on the first day of the invasion, which eventually provided the attackers with a foothold in western France to push back the Germans.

Leon Gautier, a young member of the Commando Kieffer, pictured in 1942. © AFP

Campaigner for peace

Gautier – who had lived in Ouistreham since the 1990s – joined the Free France movement in London, headed by Charles de Gaulle, in 1940.

He went to fight in Congo, Syria and Lebanon before joining the Normandy assault.

After the war, he became a campaigner for peace, pointing to his wartime experiences.

"You kill people on the other side who never did anything to you, who have families, and children. For what?" he said during a celebration for his 100th birthday last year.

"Ouistreham is very sad today, the loss of this father, this grandfather has orphaned us," said mayor Bail, calling Gautier "a local hero whom everybody knew" and "an ardent defender of freedom".

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the soldier on Twitter: "'We are not heros, we simply did our duty,' Gautier liked to say. We will not forget him."

(with AFP)

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