Yesterday we joined the L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue residents, war veterans and their families and dignitaries as they commemorated Armistice Day.
Church bells tolled and officials laid wreaths across Europe to pay tribute to the millions of soldiers killed during World War I.
Smaller ceremonies like the one we attended were being held across France, where church bells ring at 11am to mark the hour when Germany and the Allies, including France, signed the armistice on November 11, 1918 marking the end of fighting on the Western Front. The day is also known as Le Jour du Souvenir (Remembrance Day) in France, and it has been a public holiday across the country since 1922.
We leave our apartment just after 10am yesterday and as we arrive in the square locals, police and the L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue band are gathering as church goers spill out after the service.
The band assembles into order, the music strikes up and a procession starts marching from the square down Rue Carnot. We follow along and as we walk more and more people join, receiving greetings from the local shopkeepers along the way. It’s a moving experience.
The traffic stops to allow the procession to cross the main road and we continue to the cemetery and down to the site of the Jardin de Souvenir. Here a memorial lists the names of those killed in World War 1. An estimated 10 million servicemen were killed in the 1914-1918 war, of whom 1.3 million were French.
More and more arrive for the service, catching up with friends and neighbors as they wait exchanging the local greeting of three kisses on alternating cheeks. School children arrive in clusters to form a choir. A local journalist and photographer get into position. As it gets closer to 11am the dignitaries arrive including the local major and the ceremonies begin.
In the speeches mention is made of the millions of French as well as many other nationalities (including Australians and New Zealanders, British, Canadians and Americans), who lost their lives in France and remain buried here.
In between the formalities the band plays. The school children take turns one by one to come to the microphone and read out a fallen soldier’s letter, watched on proudly by their teacher and their families in the crowd. They then sing the French national anthem La Marseillaise and are joined by many of the crowd. Such a stirring tune.
The proceedings finish after about an hour and the crowd disperses. We join those heading back into the village of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue and its cafes and bars gradually fill up with people having coffee, wine or an early lunch by the river Sorgue. We choose to sit in the sun for an hour or two over a coffee and a wine before moving on to lunch as the early diners depart to take a stroll around the streets.