London, June 18 (DPA) French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife visited the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in London Friday to mark the 70th anniversary of the wartime appeal by the late General de Gaulle to fight the Nazi occupation of France.
Sarkozy, and his ex-model wife Carla, visited the radio studio from which de Gaulle made his first stirring appeal to the Free French June 18, 1940, which was followed by many more broadcasts up to the end of World War II in 1945.
No audio record of the historic broadcast on the BBC’s French service exists, but those following have been recorded. They had a crucial impact on the cohesion and fighting spirit of the resistance in occupied France.
Sarkozy unveiled a plaque to commemorate the event inside Broadcasting House, the headquarters of BBC radio. The French leader and his wife were later due to meet Prince Charles and take part in a string of ceremonies before having lunch with Prime Minister David Cameron, and his wife Samantha, in Downing Street.
