FRANCE: French President Jacques Chirac inaugurates a memorial to Muslim troops marking the 90th anniversary of the battle of Verdun

Record ID: 859272

  • Title: FRANCE: French President Jacques Chirac inaugurates a memorial to Muslim troops marking the 90th anniversary of the battle of Verdun
  • Date: 26th June 2006
  • Summary: (EU) VERDUN, FRANCE (FILE - JULY 27, 1916) (REUTERS- ACCESS ALL) GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR CAPTURED AT VERDUN MARCHING DOWN ROAD
  • Embargoed: 11th July 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • City:
  • Country: France
  • Topics: History
  • Reuters ID: LVAPYVBAQVTGKNANEMGRCEMM69K
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: On the site of World War One's bloodiest battles, President Jacques Chirac on Sunday (June 25) inaugurated a memorial to Muslim soldiers who died fighting for France at Verdun, northeastern France.
    The ceremony marked the 90th anniversary of the ten-month battle of Verdun in which some 300,000 French and German soldiers died.
    Built at a cost of 500,000 euros (US$ 627,000), the white-called Moorish-style monument is seen as a belated recognition of the contribution made by Muslim soldiers from France's North African colonies who fought during WW1.
    Seperate memorials already stand for the Christians and Jews who died in the mud and misery of the trenches, but up until Sunday, the Muslims only had a small plaque dedicated to them.
    The new monument locates only a short distance from the Douaumont ossuary where the remains of French and German soldiers are kept.
    According to Dalil Boubakeur, President of the Council of the Muslim Religion (CFCM) and rector of the Paris Mosque and who attended the ceremony, it was at Verdun that Islam in France was born. Some political scientists said the inauguration was a sign of changes in French mentalities.
    "We've wanted that the symbol of Verdun be also the symbol, the foundation of a national and patriotic feeling of the Islam of France", said Dalil Boubakeur, Paris Mosque's rector.
    Sunday's ceremony comes at a time of torment in France's relations with its colonial past and the multi-ethnic society it gave birth to.
    In a speech he made in front of the ossuary of Douaumont on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the battle of Verdun, President Jacques Chirac recalled the 72,000 soldiers who died for France during World War One.
    "72,000 thousand soldiers from the former French empire died for France between 1914 and 1918. During that war, under our flag, there were Moroccan infantry, Senegalese, Algerian and Tunisian gunners, soldiers from from Madagascar and also Indo-China, Asia and Oceania", a sombre Chirac said after laying a wreath at the new, crenellated monument .
    Schocked by rioting in mainly poor, immigrant suburbs last autumn, the government responded with a mix of tough immigrations laws and increased efforts to recognise minority groups.
    The battle of Verdun began with a German offensive aimed at breaking through to Paris on February 21, 1916. It lasted 300 days, until December 1917. It see-sawed back and forth for 10 months and by the end of the campaign in December, the lines had hardly changed.
    A potent symbol of the futility of war, the place lends itself to the task of reconciliation and was the setting for a memorable gesture of friendship between France and Germany, which fought three disastrous wars in less than a century.
    The late French President Francois Mitterrand and then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl stood hand-in-hand in Verdun in 1984 to display the new, close ties between their two countries.
    The June commemoration date was chosen as marking the half-way point of the fithting.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register