- Title: FRANCE: French World War One veteran Lazare Ponticelli salutes war dead
- Date: 11th November 2007
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (French) LAZARE PONTICELLI, ONE OF TWO LAST VETERANS FROM WORLD WAR I, SAYING: "I'm here for the moment, this year. I don't know how it will be next year" DECORATIONS ON PONTICELLI'S CHEST (SOUNDBITE) (French) LAZARE PONTICELLI, ONE OF TWO LAST VETERANS FROM WORLD WAR I, SAYING: "I never knew how I got to this point. I was in all sorts of danger, during the w
- Embargoed: 26th November 2007 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Topics: History,Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA2EAMZ94E9VGZU6JMCABCXGG4B
- Story Text: One of the two last French veterans of World War One pays tribute to fallen comrades and at 109 years old says this may be his last year.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, laid flowers on the grave of the unknown soldier during a ceremony in Paris on Sunday (November 11) to remember those who've died in wars.
He paid homage to the two remaining French veterans of World War One, 89 years after the war ended.
In a powerful speech he said they'd lived all their lives with the memory of those who died next to them.
"With the memory of the bodies torn to bits by the machine guns.
With the memory of the men buried alive in the mud of the trenches. With the memory of the the dead bodies they had to walk on during the attacks" he said.
One of France's last two surviving veterans of World War One, an Italian who served in the Foreign Legion, braved chilly winds in the working class Paris suburb of Kremlin Bicetre to take part in an Armistice Day ceremony.
Lazare Ponticelli, who is 109, said he didn't know whether he would be back next year.
In the Great War of 1914-1918 1.3 million French soldiers died.
Born in Italy in 1897, Ponticelli joined the Foreign Legion in 1914, fighting in Picardy and at the Battle of Verdun before being drafted into the Italian army in 1915 where he served until the end of the war.
He and Louis de Cazenave, 110, are the only two surviving "poilus" ("unshaven ones") -- the nickname given to France's frontline combat troops in World War One.
"I never knew how I got to this point. I was in all sorts of danger, during the war and at other times as well," he said.
Ponticelli, who worked his way up from a newspaper boy to the head of a flourishing engineering company after the war, has always attended the commemoration.
But he turned down a proposal from former President Jacques Chirac in 2005 that the last veteran be awarded a state funeral, saying it would insult veterans who died unhonoured.
He made no reference to the controversy on Sunday but posed for photographs with a group of young children, advising them to work hard and study engineering. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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