With the candidacy for UNESCO, the hope of increased preservation and memory for the beaches of D-Day

The sun bathes Juno Beach this Friday, February 14, 2025. The shelves of a particular week for the Normandy landing beaches since, on Monday, February 10, the Ministry of Culture announced that it has applied to integrate the world heritage of UNESCO. A “good news to preserve what remains”, enthuses Catherine and Bruno, two Bayeusans on the RaceUlles-sur-Mer racing sand, these regulars of Omaha Beach hope that this attempt will be the right one, after that of 2017 2017 , suspended. “UNESCO had considered that we had to reflect on war sites. It was not possible to classify them as a world heritage, “recalled the president of the region, Hervé Morin, in our columns on November 13.

In 2023, sites of the First World War were finally registered, opening the door to Utah Beach, Omaha Beach, Gold Beach, Juno Beach and Sword Beach (from west to east). On Juno, where 14,000 Canadians landed on June 6, 1944, this evolution was highlighted: “Yes, there was war. The bombings have done damage but for the liberation, for peace, ”insist Catherine and Bruno. “These are messages for the young generation. Behind the dunes, the Juno Beach center, a reference museum dedicated to Canadians in the Battle of Normandy. Its director, Nathalie Worthington, shares this vision: “The values ​​of the classification at UNESCO are peace, dialogue, preservation … In the museum, we are on these same values. I understand that we had to think about the classification of war sites. But finally, we think about the past to better understand tomorrow. »»

Decades of investment to enhance the beaches

If the candidacy of day-day beaches is a soap opera since 2008 (a first approach carried by the former Lower Normandy), the Center director believes that this long process “has made it possible to set up skills”. Thus, 20 million euros had been invested by communities to enhance sites, improve their reception capacities. “At the Juno Beach Center, for example, we had a call for projects to integrate digital technology into provisional exhibitions. An know-how that we have applied for our permanent exhibitions since ”, illustrates Nathalie Worthington. An issue that local residents also identify very well. Catherine and Bruno deliver an anecdote: “We went to visit a museum near Omaha Beach and our grandson discovered this story that he has not yet learned at school. He asked a lot of questions. »»

All these reflections, such as, too, attractiveness, management of tourism or even urbanization, will be on the menu of working groups in the coming months. The Juno Beach center is one of them. “We must invent things to give meaning and real content to this classification,” poses the director, very attentive to a sustainable development approach, both for the environment and for memory. The candidacy will be examined this year, in the hope of a registration in 2026.