On November 11, 2011

After the disappearance of the last hairy of the Great War, the ceremonies on Friday November 11 will mark the tribute to the soldiers "died for France" on all fronts before the opening by Nicolas Sarkozy's new museum dedicated to 1914-1918 at Meaux.

A special tribute will be made this year under the Arc de Triomphe to the 25 soldiers killed in the last year in Afghanistan.

A particularly deadly year 2011 for the French army, which had not had such heavy losses since 1983 and the attack against the Drakkar building in Lebanon, in which 58 French peacekeepers were killed.

The decision to honor the occasion of the November 11 the "fourth generation of fire" below those of 14-18, 39-40 and Indochina and Algeria, was taken by President Sarkozy, demand including veterans' associations. "This demonstrates that there is a connection between all those who died for France, for its values. It is the commemoration of this memory, "said Marc Laffineur, Secretary of State for veterans.

In Paris, twelve units of the three services who served in overseas operations (OPEX), Afghanistan, Ivory Coast and Lebanon, will receive the feed of the Cross of Military Valour during the celebrations. Other units will be honored at ceremonies held in the provinces. And the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, who was involved for seven months to operations in Libya with 2,000 crew members, will be distinguished. In a symbolic gesture, Nicolas Sarkozy will be accompanied by two children of soldiers killed in Afghanistan during the sharpening of the flame under the Arc de Triomphe, it was learned from the Secretariat of State. The honor comes after the decision announced in October to build in 2013 on the grounds of the Hotel des Invalides, a memorial to the 616 French soldiers killed last fifty years in overseas operations.

On the eve of 2012, Nicolas Sarkozy, who has had a strained relationship with the military at the start of his five-year, has increased in recent months regarding the actions of the "world fighting." Friday afternoon, he will focus on the memory of soldiers of 1914-18. The head of state will open in Meaux Museum of the Great War, which brings together a unique collection of 50,000 objects and documents, the home of the Secretary General of the UMP, Jean-Francois Cope. He then gather at the monument honoring Charles Peguy to Villeroy, village of Seine-et-Marne, where the writer and politician, was killed Sept. 5, 1914 at the beginning of the Battle of the Marne.

The inauguration of the Museum of the Great War is the first landmark that is part of the celebrations being considered for the centenary, in 2014, the First World War. The defense minister, Gérard Longuet, will participate in turn Friday afternoon ceremonies in the forest of Compiegne, the site or the armistice was signed in November 1918.