Jean, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, died on April 23rd, 2019, aged 98. Luxembourgers lost a much-loved personality. In 1940, he fled the country invaded by the Nazis, taking refuge in England, and becoming a volunteer in the Irish Guards. ‘‘He was my childhood hero,’’ wrote Franco-Luxembourger journalist Stéphane Bern. ‘‘The only Head of State to have participated in the Normandy landings.’’ 

The son of Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, a great figure in the Resistance in World War II, and Prince Félix de Bourbon-Parme, he was the 5th sovereign in a dynasty founded in 1890, heir to the House of Orange-Nassau. In the year 2000, he abdicated in favour of his son Henri, the current sovereign, after a 36-year reign. Highly respected by Luxembourgers for his courage, this reserved, modest man also embodied the construction of Europe and Luxembourg’s entrance into the modern age.

Under his reign, Luxembourg became a political and economic international capital. In 1989, during the Silver Jubilee of his reign, Lydie Wurth-Polfer, Mayor of Luxembourg, summed up Luxembourgers’ feelings about Grand Duke Jean in her speech. She thanked him for ‘‘his simplicity and the dignity with which he symbolized national pride and independence… (He is) a good sovereign, but also an exemplary human being who has shared our joys and hardships as we have shared his’’.