France honours its last veteran of World War I

FRANCE yesterday honoured its last World War I veteran, who died last week, and the other 8.4 million Frenchmen who fought in the conflict.

The day of tribute began with a Roman Catholic funeral Mmass attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, government ministers, soldiers and teary-eyed members of the family of Lazare Ponticelli, who died last Wednesday aged 110.

Born in Italy, Ponticelli was a French citizen for most of the past century. Worldwide, only a handful of veterans of the 1914-1918 war remain alive.

Sarkozy decided to honour the memory of all French soldiers of World War I at Ponticelli’s funeral. The day began with a mass at the Saint-Louis Cathedral, part of the vast complex of the gold-domed Invalides, which houses Napoleon’s tomb.

“You didn’t talk much, but when you did we felt your wisdom, that you doubted nothing and were determined,” Ponticelli’s grandson, Patrick Large, said at the mass.

Former president Jacques Chirac also attended the mass, and took part in ceremonies in the courtyard of Les Invalides when a minute of silence was ordered and the flag dropped to half-staff.

Sarkozy, whose conservative party took a battering in weekend municipal elections, is working to show France a more presidential image after polls showed the nation objected to his penchant for personalising the office.