RIP Lazare Ponticelli
Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:28 pm
http://www.economist.com/obituary/displ ... d=10875719Lazare Ponticelli, the last French foot-soldier of the first world war, died on March 12th, aged 110
To the end of his life, Mr Ponticelli showed no interest in labelling anyone his enemy. He said he did not understand why on earth he, or they, had been fighting.
On March 17th he had his wish, or most of it: a state funeral for all the poilus at Les Invalides, and then a simple family burial. The government badly wanted this last foot-soldier to be memorialised; but he preferred to be uncelebrated and ordinary, even in some sense forgotten, and thus the more symbolic of all the rest.