commémorations

French President Emmanuel Macron, joined by the presidents of Ivory Coast and Guinea, led commemorations at Saint-Raphaël, in Provence marking the 75th anniversary of the Allied troop landings to liberate southern France from German occupation, when he notably paid tribute to the role of huge numbers of soldiers from France's African colonies, of whom about 55,000 were killed during WWII, declaring 'France has a part of Africa in her, and on this Provence soil, this part was that of shed blood'.

President François Hollande on Sunday unveiled plaques at sites across the capital where 130 people died and hundreds of others were wounded on the evening of November 13th 2015 during gun and suicide bomb attacks by the Islamic State jihadist group, including at the Bataclan music hall which reopened on Saturday with a concert by Sting.

The ceremonies along Normandy's Channel coast reunited hundreds of veterans of the 1944 landings, the biggest sea-borne invasion in history.

The inhabitants of Merville, where British paras fell storming a key German gun battery, had long prepared for Prince's 70th anniversary visit.

Bernard Kouchner said errors were made, but dismissed Rwandan accusations that France directly helped in the1994 genocide in the country.

Officials from about 30 countries are meeting in Paris to plan four years of commemorative events for the 100th anniversary of World War I.

France will set tone for the way the world marks the 1914-18 war; two of its bloodiest battles, at Verdun and the Somme, took place on French soil.