Hegseth attacks Europe over 'invasion' of migrants on its beaches in D-Day speech

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has criticised European nations for allowing an "invasion" of migrants on their shores, during a D-Day anniversary speech in France.

Hegseth was speaking in Normandy 82 years after allied forces stormed French beaches to liberate Nazi-occupied north-western Europe in 1944.

"Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies," Hegseth said. "Beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion?"

Migration has become a major political issue across Europe in recent years, with parties supporting hardline immigration policies surging in the polls.

Sea arrivals into mainland Europe peaked in 2015, when the UN said more than a million people crossed the Mediterranean. Between April 2025 and March 2026, there were a combined 169,341 sea arrivals to the UK, Greece, Italy, Spain and Cyprus. Crossings to the UK accounted for about 23% of the total.

Hegseth said that in the years since D-Day some European capitals have grown too "comfortable" with their hard-fought freedoms, forgetting that "freedom is not free".

"The men who fought and died here restored freedom to Europe," Hegseth said. "That freedom must be maintained by this generation of leaders and war fighters or what they fought for was merely temporary."

D-Day was the largest seaborne military operation ever attempted and involved the simultaneous landing of tens of thousands of troops from the UK, US and Canada on five separate beaches in Normandy in northern France.