Transcription
Pete Hexath, the United States Secretary of Defense, though he prefers to call himself the Secretary of War, flew to Normandy to attend the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings. He gave a speech at the American military cemetery at Kville Sur. He brought his family at his own expense, according to the Pentagon, and then he skipped the main international ceremony, the one attended by French Prime Minister Sebastian Leernnu. 400 international guests and representatives of the allied nations whose soldiers landed on those beaches 82 years ago.
His absence from the ceremony was not mourned. In the village of Lronur, where the international event was held, a local civic association called Lancun and Kimun had already published a statement titled Perlur for Honor, calling for Hex's visit to be cancelled entirely and declaring him persona grata. Pete Hexith, yet another living proof that a good jawline does not make man, was told by the people of a Norman village that he was not welcome at the ceremony commemorating the liberation of their country.
My name is L and I use data analysis to swap patterns in geopolitics and economics. And this story is not about one man's visit to a cemetery or his jawline. It is about what happens when the symbolic relationship between the United States and Europe, the one built on shared sacrifice, shared values, and the memory of a war fought together, collides with a political reality now where the country that liberated Normandy in 1944 is now withdrawing its submarines from NATO, waging an unprovoked war in the Middle East, and sending its defense secretary to lecture Europeans about immigration on the very beaches where Allied forces died to give them freedom.
Hex's speech at the American cemetery was not exactly a commemoration. It was a political address. Standing in front of the graves of soldiers who fought fascism, he compared immigration to an invasion. He said, "Sadly, today different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies." He urged Europe to counter what he called an invasion arriving on its coastline. He then pivoted to defense spending, echoing the administration's standing talking point that European allies do not contribute enough to their own security. He appeared, according to multiple French media reports, to take veiled shots at European countries that have refused to participate in the Iran war. He used the graves of men who died liberating France to criticize the France that was hosting him.
The residents of Lancare were not subtle in their responses. Sylvi Lami, a member of Lancon and Kimun, told BFM TV, "He has very warlike views, and it seems to us that this man does not share our democratic values." Chantel Rishard, another member, went even further. What's happening with the Trump administration isn't business as usual. The fact that Pete Hexith is challenging all the international organizations that emerge from the Second World War isn't business as usual. The words must be spoken. He must be called out for who he is, for the values he represents, colonial, wararmongering, racist, far-right values. The association's published statement accused Hexith of anti-European remarks and said his presence at the ceremony dishonored the memory of the soldiers buried in Normandy.
If you've been following this channel's coverage of how European public opinion is turning against the United States, this is the symbolic chapter. Not exactly a poll and not a survey, but a village, one of the villages where Allied soldiers actually landed, telling Americans defense chief that he is not welcome on their soil. The security respond to Hex's visit tells its own story as well. Two streets in Lancer were closed to traffic from June 5th. Parking was banned on several more on June 6th itself. No vehicles were permitted to move anywhere within the entire commune from midday until the roads were reopened and local residents were not allowed to attend the ceremony in their own village. The deputy mayor told France Info that 30 years ago we would never have had safety standards of this caliber. He said he hoped villagers could set political considerations aside and focus on the veterans, but the politics could not exactly be set aside because Hexath himself made the ceremony political the moment he used it to deliver a speech about immigration and European defense spending rather than honoring the dead.
If you're trying to understand how to read through the symbolism of diplomatic events and see what the structural dynamics underneath actually show, my book, Awake, the practice of critical thinking in an age of soft lines, is available as an ebook and audiobook. Subscribers get 10% off and you can grab the first chapter for free in the description links below.
The most significant moment of the day, however, did not come from Pete Hexith. It came from French Defense Minister Learnu, who spoke at the same ceremony that Hexath skipped. Learnu used the occasion to call for European strategic autonomy, saying the continent must meet the challenge of our generation and build our autonomy, our capacity to defend ourselves in the face of threats that are getting closer, intensifying, and multiplying. He did not name the United States, but he didn't really need to. The American defense secretary had just left Normandy after comparing immigration to an invasion and lecturing Europe about its military spending. Learnu's response, delivered in the same village on the same day to the same audience, was to call for a Europe that defends itself without relying on the country whose representative had just turned a war memorial into a political rally.
The contrast between 1944 and 2026 is the story that no one in the Pentagon once told. Back in 1944, 156,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel and stormed the beaches of Normandy to liberate Europe from fascism. The United States led the organization. American soldiers died in their thousands on those beaches. Sadly, their sacrifice built the transatlantic alliance that shaped the next 80 years of global security and peace. In 2026, the United States withdrew all its submarines from the alliance. It cut a third of its fighter jets. It canled missile deployments to Germany. It started a war in Iran that pushed oil above $110 a barrel. It imposed tariffs on its own allies. It threatened to seize Greenland. It leaked European civil servants names to Congress. And it sent a man who calls himself the secretary of war to stand in front of the graves of men who fought for peace and use their memory to lecture the continent they died to free.
The people of Lancer saw the contradiction clearly enough. They wrote it down. They published it. They called it Peronur for honor. the honor of the village, the honor of the dead, and the honor of saying plainly and publicly that the country which liberated Normandy 82 years ago is no longer behaving like a liberator, and that a man who uses D-Day to talk about immigration invasions and defense budgets does not really deserve to stand where soldiers fell.
In terms of what's going to happen next, the prediction is that this incident does not receive significant coverage in American media, likely because the American media cycle is presently consumed by the Iran war, the World Cup, and the midterm campaign. But it will be remembered in France. It will be cited in European defense debates. And it will join the growing archive of moments. the Belgium survey, the mouth speech, the NATO withdrawal, the Microsoft League, the Greenland threats, where Europe looked at the United States, remembered where the relationship used to be, and concluded that what it has become is something else entirely. But the symbolic rejection of Normandy sits alongside a measurable one. I made a separate video on how half of Belgium, the country that hosts NATO headquarters, now views the United States as a bigger threat than China. That's the video that I would watch next. Thanks so much for watching this one.