Thousands Mark De Gaulle’s Appeal
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PARIS — Thousands of marchers paid tribute to Gen. Charles de Gaulle on Sunday, the eve of the 50th anniversary of his historic appeal to the French to fight on despite the Vichy government’s capitulation to the Nazis in World War II.
Neo-Gaullist leader Jacques Chirac and the former president’s grandson, Jean de Gaulle, joined the throng of 40,000 on the 2.5-mile march to the 135-foot granite Cross of Lorraine memorial on a hill at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises.
The village, about 150 miles northeast of Paris, was De Gaulle’s home and the place where he died on Nov. 9, 1970.
The response to De Gaulle’s June 18, 1940, radio appeal--from a British Broadcasting Corp. studio in London--for the French to fight on regardless of the surrender, eventually brought France back from defeat to take its place among the victorious four powers at the end of the war.
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