Barack Obama marks D-Day in Normandy

US President Barack Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France and hundreds of World War Two veterans yesterday to mark the 65th anniversary of D-Day on the beaches of Normandy.

As star guest of the commemorations, Mr Obama was to deliver a speech before 9,000 guests and 200 US D-Day veterans at a clifftop graveyard in northern France which has become a symbol of America's sacrifice for Europe's freedom.

"We will never forget the pain or the extent of the suffering and may we never renounce the dream of peace and justice for humanity," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, in an opening address.

Mr Obama and his wife Michelle flew from Paris to the Normandy city of Caen at noon, where they were be greeted by Mr Sarkozy and First Lady Carla Bruni for lunch and a bilateral meeting.

Both presidential couples then went to the American war cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, which overlooks the sand dunes where Allied troops opened a new western front against Nazi Germany during World War Two.

Mr Obama's Normandy visit concluded a history-laden tour of Europe that took in the German concentration camp of Buchenwald and the city of Dresden, flattened by Allied bombs in February 1945 killing an estimated 35,000 people.

After paying homage to the 9,387 American soldiers buried in Colleville, he spent yesterday night in Paris and heads back to Washington today.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Prince Charles and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper joined him at the American cemetery, which has been signed over by France to the United States in perpetuity.

Mr Brown and the prince also attended a ceremony in honour of Britain's World War Two dead, in the presence of French Prime Minister François Fillon and British veterans, in the nearby cathedral at Bayeux.