Paris celebrated French Resistance fighters, American soldiers and others who liberated the City of Light from Nazi occupation exactly 75 years ago on Sunday, unleashing kissing, dancing, tears and gratitude.

Key points: Nazi Germany occupied Paris for 50 months, impoverishing its population

Nazi Germany occupied Paris for 50 months, impoverishing its population Some 5,000 people died in the fight for the French capital

Some 5,000 people died in the fight for the French capital Veterans of WWII visited Paris for the anniversary celebrations

Firefighters unfurled a huge French flag on the Eiffel Tower, recreating the moment when a French tricolour stitched together from sheets was hoisted atop the monument to replace the swastika flag that had flown for four years.

Dozens of World War II-era jeeps, armoured vehicles, motorcycles and trucks and people dressed in wartime uniforms and dresses paraded through southern Paris, retracing the entry of French and US tanks into the city on August 25, 1944.

A Dixieland band standing on an army truck played at the end of the parade, which wrapped up at the site of a new museum about the liberation and the French Resistance.

Germany last month honoured those who had plotted to kill Hitler 75 years ago. ( AP: David Vincent )

Defeating the Nazis in Paris

In August 1944 ordinary Parisians rose up, led by Resistance fighters supported by workers, women and even priests, to throw off the Nazi yoke after four years.

Following six days of street clashes, random attacks and armed barricades, they were joined by French and US soldiers and victory was confirmed.

The German military governor of Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz, was arrested at his headquarters at the Meurice Hotel and signed the surrender. Paris buildings still bear the bullet holes of fighting.

On August 25, 1944, French civilians greeted US and Free French troops with hastily made flags. ( AP: Harry Harris )

"Paris liberated! Liberated by itself. Liberated by its people," declared General Charles de Gaulle on August 25, 1944, standing outside Paris town hall.

General de Gaulle, who led the French Resistance against Nazi Germany, on August 26 marched down the Champs-Elysees with the liberation forces, cheered on by a million people.

It took another nine months before Germany's final surrender in Europe in May 1945, ending World War II.

Enthusiasts retraced the entry of French and US tanks into Paris on August 25, 1944. ( AP: Michel Spingler )

Long the jewel of European cities, Paris suffered relatively little damage in World War II, but its citizens were humiliated, hungry and mistrustful after 50 months under the Nazis.

The liberation of Paris was both joyous and chaotic. It was faster and easier for the Allies than their protracted battle through Normandy and its gun-filled hedgerows.

But the fight for the French capital killed nearly 5,000 people, including Parisian civilians, German troops and members of the French Resistance whose sabotage and attacks had prepared the city for the liberation.

Charles de Gaulle is seen as the hero of the French Resistance. ( AP )

After invading in 1940, the Nazi hierarchy ensconced themselves in Paris' luxury hotels, and hobnobbed at theatres and fine restaurants.

Collaborationist militias kept order, and French police were complicit in the most dastardly act of the Occupation: the 1942 roundup of around 13,000 Jews at the Vel d'Hiv bicycle stadium before their eventual deportation to the Auschwitz death camp in German-occupied Poland.

Veterans, citizens remember Nazi occupation

Resistance member Madeleine Riffaud, now 95, described killing a Nazi soldier on July 23, 1944, on a Paris bridge.

Ms Riffaud was spotted as she escaped on her bicycle, then arrested, tortured and jailed before being freed in a prisoner exchange days before the liberation of the city.

Seventy-five years later, she doesn't take the killing lightly. "To carry out an action like that isn't playing with dolls," she said.

Ordinary Parisians including women, workers and priests were key to the Resistance. ( AP: Michel Spingler )

The D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, helped change the tide of the war, allowing the Allies to push through Normandy and beyond to other German-occupied lands around Western Europe.

A group of US World War II veterans returned to Paris for Sunday's events. Steve Melnikoff, a 99-year-old, came ashore on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He called the war "nasty, smelly, terrible".

But he maintained that "it was important for someone to do this", to stop Hitler from taking over more of the world.

Harold Radish, 95, arrived in France in 1944, fought his way to Germany — and then was captured.

Parisians who weren't deported or didn't flee the Nazis lived on rations. ( AP: David Vincent )

After he was freed, he visited Paris. He described the liberated city as "a new thing. Something good had changed, the world was going to get a little better."

Germany last month honoured those who had plotted to kill Hitler 75 years ago, with Chancellor Angela Merkel deeming the plotters an "example to us" amid the rise of the far-right in Europe.

"They showed that they followed their conscience and set their stamp on a part of German history that otherwise was defined by the darkness of Nazism," she said.

AP/AFP