Xinhua General News Service
August 25, 2004 Wednesday 7:30 PM EST

Paris mayor pays homage to liberators of Paris

PARIS

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe on Wednesday paid homage to all
liberators of Paris in an address at the City Hall to celebrate the
60th anniversary of Paris’ liberation from Nazi occupation.

Delanoe said that Paris’ liberation was the “symbol of the Europe
that freed itself from the Nazi yoke”.

He paid homage to all liberators, including Americans, Spanish,
Armenians, Polish, German anti-Nazi fighters and Italian
anti-Fascists.

“Their will to serve mankind’s dignity and liberty gathered them in
our city, for which they relighted the flame,” he said.

“To all these guides who made our city blazed up when breath of
liberty met with flame of honor, I extend our immense gratitude at
the name of Parisians,” said the mayor.

“Oblivion, indifference or even worse falsification are permanent
dangers at the origine of barbarism, which forms anti- Semitism,
racism or repulsion of others because of their identity, ” he noted.

“To all liberators of Paris, we owe living in the honor,” he said.

After more than four years of Nazi occupation, Paris was liberated by
the 2nd French Armored Division and the 4th US Infantry Division on
Aug. 24-25, 1944.