A spokesman for President Lech Kaczynski has said that the lack of invitation for the Polish head of state to the D-Day celebrations in France on June 6 has left a “nasty taste in the mouth”.
Polish politicians have said that it is highly regrettable that President Lech Kaczynski has not been invited to the celebrations of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, marked the allied western offensive which ultimately helped airing to an end WW II. Head of the presidential National Security Bureau Aleksander Szczydło said that Poland made a tangible contribution to the liberation of France, recalling the 15, 000-strong Polish division under the command of General Maczek and the participation of some 50, 000 Poles in the French resistance movement.
In a radio interview today, Szczygło spoke of a, “nasty aftertaste and a sense of resentment”, adding, however, that failure to invite the Polish president will have no bearing on the shape of future Polish-French relations.
The Presidential Chancellery says on its website, however, that the Polish President has received an invitation from the local authorities of the town of Falaise to attend the events commemorating the participation of Polish troops in the Battle of Falaise Pocket on 12 to 24 August 1944 which defeated Nazi troops in Normandy.
Asked to comment on the issue, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that a lack of invitation for the Polish president is “regrettable”, adding that relations between Polish and French presidents have not been too good since President Kaczynski refused to sign the Lisbon Treaty following the Irish referendum last year.
“President Sarkozy made it clear that he treated President Kaczyński’s refusal to ratify the Treaty as a matter of personal concern to him,” Tusk said.
A prominent member of the opposition Law and Justice party, Joachim Brudziński, spoke of “the smallness of the French side and failure to pay respects to the last living Polish war veterans who shed their blood for the liberation of France”.
Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain also expressed her displeasure last week after not receiving an invitation to the D-Day celebrations.
The French side says that it regards the celebrations of battles in what was in the American sector of the war as primarily a "Franco-American affair" and that is why President Obama will be a guest and not heads of state from other nations.
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, the Allies landed around 156,000 troops in Normandy. Apart from British and American troops, personnel from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland took part in the landings.
The invasion marked the beginning of the end of World War II. (mk/pg)