Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Remarks at the Hotel de Ville, Paris.

September 02, 1959

President de Gaulle, President of the Municipal Council--Parisians--and Citizens of France:

When the heart is full, the tongue is very likely to stumble. Should I try to express to you today the true feelings, the true sentiments that now inspire me, I should be completely unable to speak at all. I can say only that over the years, this city, this country, has become like it has for almost every American, something that is very dear, very real, and truly a part of the kind of world in which we want to live.

We have been allies for many years, from the days of Lafayette, back in the late seventeen hundreds. To this very moment America cherishes the friendship, the loyal support, the loyal cooperative efforts that have always been hers whenever she needed them from France.

To be more personal, let me speak for a moment about your great President, General de Gaulle. I met him in London more than seventeen years ago. Our acquaintanceship and friendship grew and developed in Algiers, and again we were in Britain; and then I met him again in France, as he began the process of reconstruction in this great country. And since that time I have kept in touch with him.

Now it is my great privilege to work with him again in the great purposes that he has just explained, those of finding a path to the peace and the security for all the world, so that you, your children, your grandchildren, may like all of those in other parts of the world, in all the continents, live in confidence, can develop in themselves all their God-given qualities and become truly people without fear. People that love liberty will never let it slip away from them, either by neglect or under threat, and will march down the road to the future with all of the faith in their God and in themselves that will make everybody--all of us--a happy people.

And so, all I can say again to this throng, to all the people who lined the Champs Elysee, who were along the streets and the boulevards as I came down here, I have one small French phrase that I think expresses my feelings: Je vous aimes tous.

Note: The President responded to remarks by General de Gaulle at 6:42 p.m. The General's remarks, as published in the Department of State Bulletin (vol. 41, p. 410), follow:

"Here once again in Paris, welcomed by the ecstasy of an entire people, here is President Eisenhower. Although the years may pass, and with each one its problems, nothing can efface the memory of the great victory achieved under his command by the allied armies and, of course, in France, by the soldiers of France. The proof that we do not forget him, Paris has just supplied. But, Mr. President, you are here at a moment when America and France feel the necessity of bringing into agreement their views concerning everything that is occurring in the five parts of the world and that our two peoples consider each other as forming a unity.

"Be it that the world must face once again a period of threat and alarm or perhaps that we can hope tomorrow to take some steps along the road toward the relaxation of tensions as we wait for this path to lead to peace, is it not true that in any event our two peoples should renew not only their friendship, which is a basic truth, but the links that unite them, to safeguard together, and with other nations of the world, the sacred cause of freedom.

"Since this concerns the United States and since it concerns France, this adjustment of their objectives and of their actions, in effect, of their policies must be accomplished with mutual respect and confidence.

"But how much easier that is when the Chief of State and the French Government have to deal with President Eisenhower. Our people, our authorities, have the best possible reason to know who he is, what he has accomplished, and what he is worth. And I find in him, with the most profound joy, the good, the warm, the loyal companion beside whom I have marched in difficult times along the road of history. Which is why, to all of you, I can say that between us all has gone very well.

"Long live General Eisenhower! Long live the President of the United States! Long live America, forever the friend and ally of France!"

The President of the Municipal Council, Dr. Pierre Devraigne, presented the President with the keys to the city.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks at the Hotel de Ville, Paris. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/234143

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