France's Macron launches season of WWII commemorative events

President Macron reviews Chasseurs Alpins (Alpine Hunters) soldiers in their traditionnal white uniform called "Tenue Solferino" and with their FAMAS assault rifles, as he pays tribute to the World War II resistance fighters killed at the Glières Plateau, during a ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the battle of Glieres, at the Glieres National Necropolis of Morette, a military cemetery in Thones, France, on April 7, 2024. AFP - PIERRE ALBOUY

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute on Sunday to 44 Jewish children deported from an orphanage in the southeast of France by the Nazis, and to members of the French Resistance, in the first of a string of events he is leading this year to mark 80 years since D-Day and the Liberation of Paris.

“The sole basis of anti-Semitism is hatred,” Macron said on Sunday, visiting the former orphanage in Izieu where on 6 April, 1944, 44 Jewish children were rounded up by the Gestapo with their seven instructors, also Jewish.