A WEEK-LONG festival to celebrate a wartime Anglo-French alliance is being held in York.

Top French politicians, diplomats, military chiefs and war veterans will be among 5,000 people expected to converge on York in October to pay homage to two French squadrons based at Elvington during the war.

Tourism chiefs, who have already set up a dedicated French accommodation webpage, are hailing the event as a bonanza for York.

More than 1,500 of the visitors are expected to attend a ceremony in both English and French unveiling the very first French memorial in an English cathedral at York Minster on October 17.

Meanwhile, more than 60 local companies with an Anglo-French theme will launch the French In York Festival this month.

They will gather at Café Rouge in York’s High Petergate on the evening of Thursday, July 28, to learn how they can be involved in the event which is hoped will be annual.

Organised by Ian Reed, director of the Yorkshire Air Museum, the festival will honour the heroes of the No 346 Guyenne and Tuinisie heavy bomber Squadrons of the RAF backed by 2,300 French airmen and ground crew at Elvington.

After the Minster service, nine aircraft from RAF Linton-on-Ouse will stage a fly-past and there is the possibility of them being accompanied by Rafale jets from the French Air Force.

Over three days, there will be exhibitions and conferences at the Yorkshire Air Museum, which has preserved the Elvington airbase.

On October 19, there will be a screening at the Tempest Anderson Hall in York’s Museum Gardens of a 1944 film made in York and Elvington by the French Government in Exile.

The next day will see the premiere of an award-winning documentary, Flightpaths, at York’s City Screen, the true love story of York girl Pat Martin, a British agent – a secret she kept even from her French husband, Henri Martin, an Elvington rear gunner, who perished in his Halifax bomber.

Between October 18 to 23, there will be a continental market in Parliament Street, where the air museum’s own Hawker Hurricane aircraft will be on display, with living history re-enactors.

John Yeomans, chairman of Visit York, said: “This event is yet another superb example of York’s visitor attractions bringing their stories to life in a way that captivates visitors and residents alike. We wish the event every success.”