100th anniversary of the first world war armistice held in France

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has warned of the dangers of rising nationalism as he addressed Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and other world leaders at a ceremony in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the first world war armistice.

The Guardian reports that Macron delivered a pointedly political speech, warning that “old demons” were resurfacing and threatened the fragile peace.

Later Macron commented that it was great to have world leaders at the Arc de Triomphe for the first world war memorial but asked how the photos would be seen in the future: “A symbol of lasting peace? Or the last moment of unity before the world falls into disorder? That depends on us.”

The centrist pro-European Macron used his commemoration speech to say that nations must find new ways to build peace together in the face of dangerous, rising populism and “selfish” nationalism.

Le Monde reports Macron saying  “Do not forget ! The war seems so far and yet it was yesterday” and “a hundred years after the scar is still visible on the face of the world” .

Emmanuel Macron has maintained a balance between the commemoration of peace, the call for union and the revival of the community project, without erasing the victory and his memory. That of “the great procession of fighters” of the Great War, “from around the world, because France represented for them all that was beautiful in the world . ” And to quote Georges Clemenceau a hundred years ago on the day of the victory: “Fighter of the right and freedom, France remains always and forever the soldier of the ideal.”

The speech of the Head of State then turned into an advocacy for multilateralism. “Let’s add our hopes instead of opposing our fears,” he told world leaders.

More than 70 heads of state and government, including Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Angela Merkel, were gathered at the Place de l’Etoile. Under the umbrellas, they had walked a few hundred meters up the Champs-Elysees. Then the ceremony began at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year, exactly as a hundred years ago, by the flight of bells throughout France.

French, English, American and German high school students read in their language letters of fighters of the time. The ceremony opened with a Bach Sarabande performed by American cellist Yo-Yo Ma and concluded with Ravel’s Bolero performed by the European Union Youth Orchestra.