The other D-Day: France remembers WWII Provence landings

France on Thursday remembers the 1944 Allied landings in Provence, an event overshadowed by the Normandy landings two months earlier, but still key to the World War II endgame in Europe.

Six African leaders were to join official events, and President Emmanuel Macron was expected to single out the contribution of soldiers recruited -- often forcibly -- in French overseas colonies, notably in Africa.

It took decades for France to highlight the crucial role of non-white soldiers in the fighting.

Macron will lead the commemorations first at the Boulouris necropolis near Saint-Raphael, then off the coast of the port of Toulon, which were at the heart of fighting on August 15, 1944, when 100,000 American, British and Canadian troops landed on the beaches of the Var region on the French Riviera.