France, African leaders mark southern \\\'D-Day\\\'

President Francois Hollande will on Friday lead ceremonies to mark 70 years since the invasion of southern France by Allied troops which, two months after D-Day, pushed the exhausted Nazi army back towards Germany and hastened the end of World War II. Joining Hollande will be a host of leaders from France’s former African colonies to pay tribute to the tens of thousands from these countries who fought to liberate France from the scourge of Hitler's Nazis. After the success of the Normandy beach landings, the Allies needed to open up a second front in France to squeeze the demoralised German army and retake the ports of Marseille and Toulon to resupply forces pouring into the hole smashed into the line on D-Day. The result was ‘Operation Dragoon’, launched on the beaches near Marseille on August 15, 1944, with a total force of 450,000 men. In contrast to the Normandy landings, where there was only a token French army presence, more than half (250,000) of the invading force was French. On the evening of August 15, of the 100,000 men that had successfully landed, around 1,000 had fallen, death on a much smaller scale than D-Day, where there were 10,000 casualties, according to AFP.