UNESCO adds Normandy's D-Day landing beaches to World Heritage List

A blockhaus is seen on the "Pointe du Hoc", a clifftop in Cricqueville-en-Bessin, on the French western Norman coast, on March 24, 2009. © Mychele Daniau, AFP

The D-Day landing beaches in Normandy were added to UNESCO's World Heritage List Sunday. The 80-kilometre stretch of coastline in northwest France served as the site for Allied forces' landing in Europe in June 1944, marking a decisive moment in the war against Nazi Germany and its fascist allies in Europe.

World War II’s D-Day landing beaches in northern France were among the sites added to the World Heritage List on Sunday at a UN committee meeting in South Korea reviewing dozens of nominations.

The French designation covers the five Normandy landing beaches – Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold and Juno – where more than 150,000 Allied troops came ashore on June 6, 1944, along with the Pointe du Hoc assault site, all central to the campaign to liberate Western Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II.

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International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), which evaluates submissions to the heritage committee, said the sites contain extensive remnants, from German fortifications and bomb-scarred landscapes to Allied harbour structures and sunken vessels, marking an “event widely perceived as having enabled the return of freedom and heralded a lasting peace on the European continent”.

"This decision places a responsibility upon us," said Hervé Morin, president of the Normandy Region.

"It compels us to preserve this property, to protect it, to cherish it even more, and to promote its value," he added.

French troops disembark from a US landing craft during a joint US and French amphibious landing operation showcase, on June 4, 2024, at Omaha beach in Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, northwestern France. © Loïc Venance, AFP

ICOMOS also called for stronger monitoring and preservation efforts on the sites, citing potential threats posed by tourism, climate change and rising sea levels, and the development of wind farms near the areas.

“It’s probably the greatest amphibious landing there’s ever been. It ought to be remembered for that alone,” historian David Edgerton said about the Normandy landings in a recent interview with the Associated Press.

The UNESCO committee, which meets in Busan through Wednesday, also inscribed Greece's iconic Mount Olympus, the ancient Japanese capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara and South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape, host to one of the world’s largest land mammal migrations and the country’s first addition to the World Heritage List.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)