France

2014

Commemorative coin

70th anniversary of the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944

Official Journal of the European Union

In the coin’s central field the word D-DAY is written in such a way as to depict a landing craft and a tank gun barrel. The years 1944-2014 appear above the tank gun, with the inscription ‘70e anniversaire du débarquement’ (70th anniversary of the landings) further down. The distinctive footprints left by the boots worn by American, British and Canadian troops are gradually disappearing in the sand, washed away by a wave. The words of a poem by Verlaine used as a code for the start of the landings are engraved on the wave: ‘Les sanglots longs des violons de l’automne blessent mon coeur d’une langueur monotone’ (the long sobs of the violins of autumn wound my heart with a monotonous languor). The coin’s outer ring depicts the 12 stars of the European flag.

Additional information

The D-DAY lettering, stylized, represents a landing ship and a tank gun: On June 6, 1944, Operation Overlord began, opening a second front for the anti-Hitler coalition. The landing of American, British, French, Canadian and Polish troops in Normandy was codenamed Operation Neptune. Below the 70th anniversary of the landing there are imprints of the soldiers' sole profiles, which are blurred by a wave. The text "Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne blessent mon coeur d'une langueur monotone" ("The long sobs of the violins of autumn wound my heart with a monotonous melancholy") is the beginning of the poem Chanson d'automne written in 1866 by the French poet of Symbolism Paul Verlaine (1844-1896). The second verse of the poem ("All suffocating and pale, when the hour beats, I remember the days of yore and I weep"), which served as a code, informed the French Resistance in a Radio Londres programme about the imminent start of the invasion.

Edge lettering

Designer