Four French Resistance fighters will receive honorary MBEs, Boris Johnson announced tonight as President Emmanuel Macron becomes the first foreign leader to visit the UK since the coronavirus lockdown.
He arrives in London on Thursday to mark the 80th anniversary of “Gaulle's Appel” – the famous speech given by Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French Forces, from London in 1940.
He addressed the French people from the city after the fall of France – and declared the war for his homeland was not over. De Gaulle's Appeal is widely considered to be the origin of the French Resistance to the German occupation during the Second World War.