The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been accused by historians and rights campaigners of “grotesque stupidity” and desecrating the memory of the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy after he sought to link immigration to the D-day anniversary, saying Europe was facing a different “invasion” of its shores.
Speaking in north-west France on Saturday to mark the 82nd anniversary of the D-day landings, Hegseth seized on the moment marking the wartime liberation of Europe to reiterate the US administration’s longstanding attack on European immigration policies.
“Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different, dangerous ideologies,” Hegseth told those gathered at the American military cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer.
“Beaches in Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion, or is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not,” he said.
“The men who fought and died here restored freedom to Europe,” added Hegseth, a former Fox News host. “That freedom must be maintained by this generation of leaders and war fighters, or what they fought for was merely temporary.”
The remarks were swiftly condemned on social media. The English historian, author and television presenter Simon Schama described them as a “special kind of loathsomeness: a blend of historical deafness, grotesque stupidity and comically ludicrous self-importance”.
Schama added: “As if the little people’s rage against immigration somehow is superior to the war against the 3rd Reich and entitles this comic book nobody to lecture the actual heroes.”
From Jerusalem, the Israeli human rights lawyer Daniel Seidemann also weighed in. “This is an obscene desecration of the memories of those who stormed the beaches of Normandy, and especially of those who fell,” he wrote.
Anders Åslund, a Swedish economist and former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, contrasted the comments with Hegseth’s later remarks on the US standing alongside its allies. “So much nonsense,” he wrote on social media. “‘We stand by our allies!’ No you don’t. You just attacked them. Immigration policies are internal matters.”
Åslund said Hegseth’s comments were particularly “clueless” given his recent decision to skip a key Nato meeting and Donald Trump’s vows to cut the number of troops in Europe. “Doesn’t Hegseth know that the most unreliable ‘ally’ by far is the US?” he said.
Hegseth’s outsized focus on EU migration echoes comments made by other American officials, including Trump, who have consistently sought to criticise the impact of migration on the continent, despite the US having a higher proportion of foreign-born residents than the EU.
Hours before Hegseth’s speech, the US vice-president, JD Vance, also waded into the matter with a social media post that blamed immigration for the killing of Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old British student stabbed in the UK. Nowak’s killer, a British-born Sikh, was convicted of murder and jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years.
On Sunday, the UK justice secretary and deputy prime minister, David Lammy, said he had had an “agreeable” conversation in which he had sought to set the record straight with Vance. “This has got nothing to do with mass migration. This young man was a Brit,” Lammy told Sky News. “Let’s be clear about that. And I said: ‘Look, Mr Vice-president, you’re wrong about this.’”
In the days before Hegseth’s visit to France, the plans had stirred up controversy, with one residents’ association calling for the trip to be cancelled. “This individual promotes values that go against democracy, human rights and peace,” the Langrune en Commun association, which advocates for environmentalism and solidarity among the village’s residents, said in a press release last week.
Speaking to the broadcaster BFMTV, one member of the association cautioned against acting as though everything was normal. “What’s happening with the Trump administration isn’t business as usual. The fact that Pete Hegseth is challenging all the international organisations that emerged from the second world war isn’t business as usual,” said Chantal Richard.
“The words must be spoken, he must be called out for who he is, for the values he represents: colonial, warmongering, racist, far-right values,” she added. “Silence seems to us to be the worst thing we can do on these issues.”