FRANCE: French president Jacques Chirac inaugurated a memorial yesterday to the thousands of Muslims who died during the first World War at a ceremony marking the 90th anniversary of the blood-soaked battle of Verdun.
The commemoration comes at a time of turbulence in France's relations with its minorities and a senior Muslim leader said he hoped the belated recognition of his community's war dead would help ease tensions.
Chirac himself looked back almost with nostalgia at the way France rallied together in 1916 to fight off the Germans. "This ceremony reminds us how in that moment of history, at Verdun and for Verdun, the French nation knew how to unite," he said.
Separate memorials already stand for the Christians and Jews who died in the trenches, but until yesterday the Muslims only had a small plaque dedicated to them. France mobilised close to 600,000 colonial subjects, including many from Muslim territories such as Algeria and Tunisia, during the first World War, of whom 78,000 were killed. Total French dead numbered 1.2 million.