D-Day beach cafe ‘hates the English and refused to serve British soldiers’
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-sur-Mer, sits 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 businesses being reliant on foreign visitors, battlefield guide Eugenie Brooks said the soldiers she took to the eatery were refused service.
“This cafe at Vierville Draw at Omaha Beach, in Normandy, refused to serve my British Army soldiers today as ‘they are English’,” she wrote on Twitter, adding: “An utter disgrace and I will never ever, ever take any of my tours there again.”
Ms Brooks said the group were “well-behaved junior soldiers all smartly dressed”. She said the incident left her “fuming”.
The American diner-themed cafe has pictures inside it showing the flags of the world, including Britain’s Union flag.
The cafe did not respond to calls from The Telegraph.
The group were far from the only ones to leave the premises with a bad taste in their mouths. TripAdvisor gave it a two-star rating and many of the comments were deeply negative, with several describing the experience as “horrible”.
One visitor, who said they were there this month, said they had the “worst customer experience ever” and claimed the establishment showed “utter contempt for customers and visitors from the UK”.
Another who posted yesterday said they and “a small party of descendants of servicemen visiting Omaha beach” received “appalling service” and were “ignored”.
One furious commentator wrote: “Backstabbing French wouldn’t have their business if it had not been for the great sacrifices of the English and the Allies.”
British visitors are not the only ones to receive sub-par treatment.
One French family wrote: “Run away!”
The Normandy tourism board swiftly reacted to the snowballing comments, 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 from the D-Day museum in Omaha and a short distance from the Overlord Museum and Normandy American Cemetery.
During Operation Overlord, Allied troops landed on five Normandy beaches codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The Allies suffered the most casualties at Omaha, 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.
Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, Joe Biden, the US president, and Justin Trudeau, Canadian prime minister, will attend this year’s official anniversary ceremony on June 6 on Omaha Beach.
King Charles has “made it a personal mission” to travel to Normandy for the commemorations despite suffering from cancer, along with the Prince of Wales.
