Nice will celebrate the 82nd anniversary of its liberation on August 28, 2026

This Friday, August 28, 2026, the city of Nice is organizing the 82nd anniversary of the Liberation of Nice. The traditional memory circuit and the parade of American vehicles will animate the streets of the city, reminding everyone that the capital of the Côte d’Azur liberated itself from Nazi occupation in 1944. A brief historical reminder and what is being organized by the town hall.

August 28 is a key date for the city of Nice, which is celebrating the 82nd anniversary of its liberation this year. On this day that entered history, the citizens of Nice took up arms to drive out the Nazi occupiers themselves. This event occurred in the context of a city ravaged by fear and hunger. Bread rations were limited, from August 14 onwards, to 100 grams per day and resistance fighters were killed. On July 7, 1944, two local resistance fighters, Séraphin Torrin and Ange Grassi, were hanged on Avenue de la Victoire, now Avenue Jean-Médecin. The crowd was forced to witness this to prevent any obstruction and sabotage.

It was then that the Allies landed in Provence on August 15, 1944, during an operation known as Anvil-Dragoon. A majority of Americans, French, British and Canadians wanted to liberate Marseille and Toulon and then move towards the west of the Var. Nice and its surroundings were therefore not in their plan, since the offensive stopped at the Var river, separating the free zone from the occupied zone.

The hope for liberation from the Allies

The leaders of the local Resistance refused to leave the territory under Nazi rule, especially following the execution of 21 resistance fighters in the Ariane district on August 15 by the Gestapo.

It was then that on August 16, Captain Jacques Lécuyer, alias Sapin, head of the FFI, boarded a Citroën Traction Avant with Scottish Major Gun. The two of them went to meet American General Robert Frederick, commander of an allied airborne unit (the First Airborne Task Force). Both persuaded the American that the hinterland and its surroundings were ready to rise up.

The commander rallied his superior, General Patch. The American superior thus authorized, exceptionally, an advance of allied troops eastward without crossing the Var. The Americans rushed forward, in turn, with two troops in the liberation of the surroundings. One helped the maquis (resistance fighters from the Maritime Alps) in the forests, having notably liberated Levens on August 27; the second arrived that evening at Saint-Laurent-du-Var. Nice remained facing it, on the other bank.

On August 28, Nice rose up alone

It was at 6 o’clock in the morning that Nice rose up on August 28, 1944, following a decision made the day before at 20, Boulevard de Cessole (boulevard where the memory circuit organized by the city of Nice begins this Friday), by the Insurrectional Committee. The Nice Resistance fought in the streets and key points of the city, forcing the Wehrmacht (German army) to retreat towards Italy and scuttle the port with explosives.

In this battle, 35 people from Nice fell and 280 were wounded, allowing Nice to be free on August 29, 1944. The Americans, unable to cross the Var under orders from the general staff, ordered Joseph Arnaldi to go and get these liberators. He led them to a bar-grocery store at the entrance to Nice, where a celebration took place in honor of a liberated city. The scout called his base and pronounced the memorable “Yes, free, Nice.. Good!”, before collapsing. It was only on August 30 that American armored vehicles of the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment entered, under an acclaiming crowd, the city of Nice.

Nice thus became French again, no longer under Nazi rule. The blue city also became a haven of peace for Americans who made it the USRRA (United States Riviera Rest Area) in 1945. Every week, 15,000 American furloughed soldiers rested from the front in the hotels offered by the Côte d’Azur to the rhythm of jazz and dances.

This is why the date of August 28 has remained embedded in Nice’s history. This duty of remembrance is carried out to the rhythm of a memory circuit organized by the city of Nice to lay flowers at each plaque of resistance fighters who died for the liberation of Nice. American tanks will descend Avenue Jean Médecin to settle at the water mirror at 11 o’clock, along the path of the resistance fighters Séraphin Torrin and Ange Grassi who died at these locations.

Summary of the 82nd anniversary program:

• 8 o’clock: start of the memory circuit to lay flowers at the stelae of our heroes; march starting from 2, Boulevard de Cessole (ending at 2:15 p.m. at Nice Town Hall);
• 10 o’clock: start of the parade of American vehicles from World War II, departure from the MIN via the Promenade des Anglais and Boulevard Gambetta;
• 11 o’clock: descent of vehicles on Jean Médecin avenue in tribute to Séraphin Torrin and Ange Grassi;
• 12 o’clock to 4 p.m.: water mirror at Place Masséna to admire the vehicles;
• 4 p.m.: tribute planned as part of the memory circuit in front of the commemorative plaque of Nice Town Hall with Eric Ciotti
• 6 p.m.: official tribute by the grand memorial ceremony at the War Memorial of Rauba Capeù
• 6:30 p.m.: commemoration of the Liberation of Nice with the PCF 06 in front of the stele at the intersection of the Gambetta-Cessole railway line.
• 7:30 p.m.: popular tribute to the martyrs and the Resistance at the Thiole Garden with LFI in the presence of Max Barel, son of Yves Barel, grandson of Yves Barel and nephew of Max Barel.

A memorial recalling the words of General de Gaulle on April 9, 1945 in Nice: “Nice liberated, Nice proud, Nice glorious!”, “Nice has never renounced itself, nor renounced France.”