President Jacques Chirac, who wants the commemoration to mark a healing of Franco-US ties strained by French opposition to the Iraq war, declared the United States an "eternal ally."

"In the trials and that sacrifice of war we became inseparable allies," Bush told the event at the US cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, near the beach codenamed Omaha where US troops landed and took heavy losses on June 6, 1944.

"Our great alliance is strong and it is still needed today," he said. "America would do it again for our friends," he said of the key role played by the United States in helping to free France from Nazi occupation.

Chirac, who walked through the cemetery side by side with Bush, said the French would forever remain grateful to the United States.

"America remains our eternal ally, and that alliance and solidarity are all the stronger for having been forged in those terrible hours," he said.

Meanwhile, seventeen world leaders and thousands of World War Two veterans commemorate the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy yesterday, looking to the future as well as to the past.

The heads of state and government attending the ceremonies in Normandy have underlined the importance of reconciliation as well as remembrance as they prepare for one of the biggest security operations staged on French soil.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will be the first German leader to take part in D-Day events in France, and President Vladimir Putin will be the first Russian head of state to attend.

"Germany is aware of its past sins and has learned from them," said Schroeder. He never knew his father, who was killed in combat in Romania.

US President George W Bush and French President Jacques Chirac hope to use the ceremonies to highlight the fact that there is more uniting than dividing their countries despite differences over the war in Iraq, which France opposed.