{"id":213084,"date":"2026-06-08T11:02:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T11:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/pete-hegseths-d-day-speech-on-immigration-condemned-as-grotesque-stupidity-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T11:02:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T11:02:51","slug":"pete-hegseths-d-day-speech-on-immigration-condemned-as-grotesque-stupidity-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/pete-hegseths-d-day-speech-on-immigration-condemned-as-grotesque-stupidity-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Hegseth\u2019s D-day speech on immigration condemned as \u2018grotesque stupidity\u2019 – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Historians and campaigners accuse US defence secretary of desecrating memory of soldiers who fell in Normandy
The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth<\/a>, has been accused by historians and rights campaigners of \u201cgrotesque stupidity\u201d 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 \u201cinvasion\u201d 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<\/a> to reiterate the US administration\u2019s longstanding attack on European immigration policies.
\u201cSadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different, dangerous ideologies,\u201d Hegseth told those gathered at the American military cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer.
\u201cBeaches 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,\u201d he said.
\u201cThe men who fought and died here restored freedom to Europe,\u201d added Hegseth, a former Fox News host. \u201cThat freedom must be maintained by this generation of leaders and war fighters, or what they fought for was merely temporary.\u201d
The remarks were swiftly condemned on social media. The English historian, author and television presenter<\/a> Simon Schama described them as a \u201cspecial kind of loathsomeness: a blend of historical deafness, grotesque stupidity and comically ludicrous self-importance\u201d.
Schama added: \u201cAs if the little people\u2019s rage against immigration somehow is superior to the war against the 3rd Reich and entitles this comic book nobody to lecture the actual heroes.\u201d
From Jerusalem, the Israeli human rights lawyer<\/a> Daniel Seidemann also weighed in. \u201cThis is an obscene desecration of the memories of those who stormed the beaches of Normandy, and especially of those who fell,\u201d he wrote.
Anders \u00c5slund, a Swedish economist and former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, contrasted the comments with Hegseth\u2019s later remarks on the US standing alongside its allies. \u201cSo much nonsense,\u201d he wrote on social media. \u201c\u2018We stand by our allies!\u2019 No you don\u2019t. You just attacked them. Immigration policies are internal matters.\u201d
\u00c5slund said Hegseth\u2019s comments were particularly \u201cclueless\u201d given his recent decision to skip<\/a> a key Nato meeting and Donald Trump\u2019s vows to cut<\/a> the number of troops in Europe. \u201cDoesn\u2019t Hegseth know that the most unreliable \u2018ally\u2019 by far is the US?\u201d he said.
Hegseth\u2019s outsized focus on EU migration echoes comments made by other American officials, including Trump, who have consistently sought<\/a> to criticise the impact of migration on the continent, despite the US having a higher proportion<\/a> of foreign-born residents than the EU<\/a>.
Hours before Hegseth\u2019s 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<\/a> in the UK. Nowak\u2019s 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<\/a> \u201cagreeable\u201d conversation in which he had sought to set the record straight with Vance. \u201cThis has got nothing to do with mass migration. This young man was a Brit,\u201d Lammy told Sky News. \u201cLet\u2019s be clear about that. And I said: \u2018Look, Mr Vice-president, you\u2019re wrong about this.\u2019\u201d
In the days before Hegseth\u2019s visit to France<\/a>, the plans had stirred up controversy, with one residents\u2019 association calling for the trip to be cancelled. \u201cThis individual promotes values that go against democracy, human rights and peace,\u201d the Langrune en Commun association, which advocates for environmentalism and solidarity among the village\u2019s 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. \u201cWhat\u2019s happening with the Trump administration isn\u2019t business as usual. The fact that Pete Hegseth is challenging all the international organisations that emerged from the second world war isn\u2019t business as usual,\u201d said<\/a> Chantal Richard.
\u201cThe words must be spoken, he must be called out for who he is, for the values he represents: colonial, warmongering, racist, far-right values,\u201d she added. \u201cSilence seems to us to be the worst thing we can do on these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Historians and campaigners accuse US defence secretary of desecrating memory of soldiers who fell in NormandyThe US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been accused by historians and rights campaigners of \u201cgrotesque stupidity\u201d and desecrating the memory of the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy after he sought to link immigration to the D-day anniversary, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-213084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}