70th Anniversary of D-Day The region of Normandy is commemorating the 70th anniversary of D-Day in 2014 with a rich and unprecedented program of cultural events and festivities. The greatest amphibious landing in military history, D-Day sparked the 77-day long Battle of Normandy that eventually led to the liberation of Paris in August, 1944 and the rest of Europe in May of 1945. With festivities year-round, the annual D-Day festival will take place from June 5 to August 21, 2014. The official international ceremony celebrating this major anniversary will take place on Sword Beach and will be attended by President Barack Obama, French President François Hollande and other Allied Heads of State on June 6. Sites, museums, places of remembrance, exhibitions, festivals, shows and entertainment can be enjoyed throughout the year. Most notably, there will be a Giant Picnic on Omaha Beach on June 7 which attracts 1,500 people per year of all nationalities as well as synchronized fireworks in 24 key sites of the Landing Beaches from June 1 to June 9.
The World Equestrian Games
The World Equestrian Games, the biggest equestrian event in the world, will also be held in Normandy this year from August 23 to September 7. Held in France for the first time, there will be a myriad of events near the competition sites, including concerts, film screenings and shows.
100th Anniversary of the Beginning of World War I
From August 1914 to November 1918, France was the stage for the most violent and deadly war that history had ever known. For 5 years, from the North Sea to the Swiss border, with a front line over 600 miles long, millions of men from France, Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, America, Russia, India and Senegal, and right across the five continents, armed with the most modern and powerful weapons of the day, fought one another on almost a daily basis. Their battles and their deaths stained French soil and seared the memory of the world but have also inspired contemporary hopes of international peace. To find out more about the commemorative events held throughout 2014, please click here: http://centenaire.org/en
Confluences Museum
Within the Quartier de la Confluence urban development and reclamation project, which transformed the traditionally industrial tip of the city’s southern peninsula into green space, Lyon will open the Confluence Museum in December 2014. Dedicated to science, art and society, the museum will feature eight rooms (four permanent exhibition areas and four temporary exhibition areas) with different circulating exhibitions covering topics such as: genetic modification, exchange and innovation, origins of life, biodiversity, global-warming, geopolitics and social behavior.
Musée Soulages
The Midi-Pyrenées will witness a veritable blossoming of its art scene in 2014, with the opening of the Musée Soulages in the town of Rodez, which celebrates the painter Pierre Soulages. The highest earning French artist in the contemporary art market, Soulages’ retrospective at the Centre Pompidou attracted close to 500,000 visitors (second only to the Dali exhibition). Containing nearly 500 works, the Musée Soulages will be the home of many of Soulages’ earliest works, which are also the most sought after.
