Vincent Feli Boy’s Blog

PARIS The coffin of Lazare Ponticelli, the last French survivor of the First World War, was carried by members of the Foreign Legion at a state funeral in Les Invalides. A day of commemoration was ordered by President Sarkozy, who wants younger generations to remember the sacrifices of les poilus - the affectionate nickname for the Great War veterans of France. The funeral was attended by Mr Sarkozy, government ministers, Jacques Chirac, the former President, representatives of the Italian Alpine brigade, to which Mr Ponticelli was called up in 1915, and members of his family.

Mr Ponticelli, an Italian who left his homeland aged 9 to join his brothers in Paris, joined the Foreign Legion as a 16-year-old in 1914 at the outbreak of the conflict. After fighting for Italy, he returned to France in 1921, where he and his brothers started a company that made factory chimneys. He eventually became a French citizen. He died last week, aged 110.

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Obama sought to quell a political firestorm ignited when news outlets called attention to sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which the Illinois senator attended for two decades. “We have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism,” he said.

“Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, ‘Not this time.’” Wright, who retired recently, has railed that the September 11 attacks were retribution for U.S. foreign policy, called the U.S. government the source of the AIDS virus and expressed anger over what he called racist America.

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