The 11th day of the 11th month at 11 o’clock – Europe celebrates the victims of the First World War / Article

It is the first time since 1944 that a British prime minister has joined a French leader at a ceremony in Paris marking the anniversary of the armistice of the First World War. Back then – 80 years ago, when the Second World War was coming to an end and Allied troops had liberated most of France from Nazi occupation – Charles de Gaulle joined British Prime Minister Winston Churchill .

Now British Prime Minister Keir Starmer laid a wreath with French President Emmanuel Macron before proceeding to the traditional ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, where the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was lit.

Commemorations were also held on Monday 11 November in Belgium and the city of Ypres, where there was heavy fighting in the First World War and the use of the deadly mustard gas named after the site.

“They do not grow old. As we who are still grow old. Age does not wear them down, years do not imprison them. As the sun sets and the morning rises , we will remember them.” – said Flanders Prime Minister Matthias Diependaele.

Also in Britain, on the 11th day of the 11th month, at 11 o’clock, a moment of silence was observed for those who died in the First World War.

Poppies pinned to coats, poppy wreaths are symbolically linked to the battlefields of Belgium and northern France, where some of the fiercest battles of the war took place. Red poppies then grew profusely in the war-torn fields. The image of the resilient poppy became a symbol of the memory of the fallen soldiers. Since 1921, poppies have been worn in many countries to honor those who died in the First World War and later conflicts, especially around Remembrance Day – November 11.

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