French President François Hollande on Tuesday inaugurated a breathtakingly vast memorial to nearly 580,000 soldiers of all nationalities who died in the northern French Pas-de-Calais region during the First World War, reports FRANCE 24.
Earlier in the day, Hollande, along with political and military representatives of other countries involved in World War I, attended the November 11 (Armistice Day) military commemoration at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in central Paris, before taking a special train to Arras, a short 45-minute ride to the northwest of France.
Near Arras is the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette “national necropolis”, a cemetery containing the graves of 40,000 French soldiers and home to the new “Ring of Remembrance” memorial.
Ahead of his arrival, a plane dragging a banner reading “Hollande resign” was seen flying above the memorial site. It was grounded by the authorities before the presidential delegation arrived.
Another unexpected flying guest arrived in the form of a small (and noisy) camera drone buzzing around Hollande as he toured the memorial. He joked at one stage that “this one, at least, is authorised".
The new memorial takes the shape of a huge elliptical ring that seems to float above the landscape. It lists 579,606 names on 500 three-metre-tall steel plates.
The memorial has a distinctly European flavour, listing names irrespective of rank or nationality, eradicating old enmities in the spirit of Europe’s (albeit fragile) 21st century unity.
It is a “symbol of unity”, according to the memorial’s architect Philippe Prost, which “emphasises the brotherhood that now exists between the people who did battle in World War I”.
Hollande toured the “Ring of Remembrance”, meeting students from France, the UK and Germany, who talked about individual soldiers and recited poems, notably Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth”.