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World leaders pay homage to D-Day's history-makers

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-07 20:11

US President Barack Obama meets Canadian WWII veteran Don Roach on the 65th anniversary of the allied landings at the US war cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer June 6, 2009. [Agencies]

Veteran George Charlesbois, 84, said: "I didn't come before because I was afraid to be too upset. But given my age I might not make it next time."

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A draconian security lockdown was put in place in the Normandy village of Colleville for Obama's visit, with some 3,000 police and gendarmes deployed and roads and highways cut across the region.

But locals rolled out the red-carpet with streets festooned with Allied country flags and soldiers' photographs, and military enthusiasts patrolled in period jeeps and motorcycles.

Obama and his family received a hero's welcome after heading to Paris later on Saturday evening, as crowds gathered outside the city's Notre Dame cathedral and a restaurant in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

He is due to fly to the United States on Sunday at the end of a foreign tour that had already taken him to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Germany.

The US president also held talks with Sarkozy before the ceremony focusing on issues such as the Middle East and North Korea's nuclear weapon test that Obama said had been "extraordinarily provocative."

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