D-day cafe refuses to serve British soldiers touring Normandy
A SECOND World War tour guide has criticised a cafe overlooking Normandy’s Omaha beach, claiming it declined to serve a group of visiting British soldiers “because they are English”.
Creperie la Falaise in Vierville-surmer has pride of place near the famed coastline stormed by Allied troops on D-day as they battled to liberate France from Nazi occupation.
With the landmark 80th anniversary of D-day just weeks away, and despite local business’s reliance on foreign visitors, battlefield guide Eugenie Brooks said troops she took to the eatery were refused service. Explaining her experience, she said on X, formerly Twitter: ““This cafe at Vierville Draw at Omaha Beach Normandy refused to serve my British Army soldiers today as ‘they are English’.
“An utter disgrace and I will never ever ever take any of my tours there again.”
Ms Brooks said that the group were “well behaved Junior Soldiers all smartly dressed” and that the incident left her “fuming”.
Florent Neveur, who has run Creperie la Falaise with his mother for a decade, said it was all a misunderstanding.
He claimed that the British tourists were turned away because the cafe was full.
“Two buses came on Monday about 12.30pm – when it was a very busy time for us,” he said.
“I said, ‘Guys, I’m so sorry. I have to be focused on my restaurant, I can’t help you, I can’t leave my other customers’,” he told Mailonline.
“It gets crazy here. Sometimes we cannot serve everybody. I take care of my customers,” he added.
The Normandy tourism board swiftly reacted to Ms Brooks’s experience, writing: “Morning Eugenie. Thanks for pointing this out to us.
“It’s utterly unbelievable. British visitors and soldiers will of course always be welcome here in Normandy, and the nearby British Normandy Memorial bears witness to the history we share.”
The cafe is located less than a mile away from the D-day museum in Omaha and a short distance from the Overlord Museum and Normandy American Cemetery.
Omaha saw the Allies take the most casualties with around 2,400 American troops killed by German gunners and artillery on June 6, 1944, the first day of the effort to drive the Nazis out of France.
During Operation Overlord Allied troops landed on five Normandy beaches codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.
After fierce fighting, some 34,000 Allied troops had landed by nightfall.
Rishi Sunak, the British Prime Minister, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, Joe Biden, the US president, and Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, will attend this year’s official international ceremony on June 6 on Omaha Beach.
The King has “made it a personal mission” to travel to Normandy for the commemorations despite suffering from cancer, along with the Prince of Wales.