Léon Gautier, last French survivor of the Normandy landings, is dead

Léon Gautier turned 100 in October 2022. And even if he was not running after honors, last June he was still present, with President Emmanuel Macron, on the beach at Colleville-Montgomery for the 79th anniversary of D-Day. His friend Franck Leconte, former director of veterans of Calvados, interviewed by AFP, said that in 2014, he had been invited to the lunch of the official ceremony with the heads of state, “ but since 1945 he had made a point of staying with his English wife Dorothy for June 6th. Since she was not invited, he replied that he would have a barbecue with his wife and then he would come “.

French President Emmanuel Macron immediately paid tribute to him in a tweet. “”We are not heroes, we only did our duty”, he repeated. Last member of the Kieffer commando who landed with his 176 French comrades in Normandy on June 6, 1944, hero of the Liberation, Léon Gautier has left us. We won’t forget it “, reacted the head of state.

Léon Gautier had joined London and General de Gaulle in July 1940. Before the landing of June 6, he had fought in Cameroon, Congo, Syria, Lebanon. After the war, he returned to England with his wife, whom he met across the Channel during the conflict, for seven years, worked more than “ 60 hours per week “, returns to France and sets out again as workshop foreman, for another seven years, in Africa, before an accident which brings him back to the country. He is then plastered from neck to toe.

Also to listenGrand Reportage – D-Day, memories of the landing

This father of two children, living in Ouistreham since the 1990s, has never ceased to commit for peace since the end of the conflict. “ The worst thing you can see is a war. Because we kill people opposite who have never done anything, who have a family, children. All this to achieve what? “, asked the Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, dressed in a suit and tie in his wheelchair during a ceremony for his 100th birthday on October 27, 2022.

A planned national tribute

” Ouistreham is very sad today, we are somewhat orphaned by this father, this grandfather, a local hero known to all who passed on a certain number of values ​​for freedom, of which he was an ardent defender when he landed on our beaches “said Romain Bail, the mayor of Ouistreham. “ The State services confirmed to me that a national tribute would be paid to him in Normandy “, he added.

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