Hard truths.
The surrender brought an end to a six-year global conflict that had involved dozens of countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Pacific, and resulted in tens of millions of deaths.
The French capital had been under Nazi control since 1940, but the occupation began to crumble after the Allied D-Day landings in Normandy and the advance of Allied forces across France.
Stretching for more than 80 kilometres (50 miles) of coastline in northwestern France, the beaches where Allied forces landed on June 6, 1944, were the scene of a decisive battle to liberate Europe from Nazism...