Somber occasion this moment in Paris as 70 word leaders mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. Somber because of the memory of the countless who perished and for the lessons left unlearned by generations since.
When the anthem isn't playing, the only sound you can hear is the rain. You could almost hear a pin drop.
Now American cellist Yo-yo Ma (born in Paris) is playing.
Young people now seem to be reading from letters written on the day of the armistice.
Something in French, something in English, something in Chinese (I don't know what it was, no translation, but the Chinese played a role in WWI in Europe). Then more Yo-Yo Ma with a violin accompanying him.
More young people reading letters. BBC talking over them. Shame, because someone is reading in English at the moment. Now someone reading German. Now French, I think, but the BBC won't stop talking over it.
Suddenly a Beninese woman in a bright blue dress--against all the black suits and coats of leaders --starts singing. BBC talks right over her song.
Ah, BBC commentators finally stop talking so viewers can hear the song.
Macron now speaks. References the armistice, points out that military conflicts continued in the east. Says we should take a moment to think about all the soldiers from around the world who fought in France. Mentions some who fell and "all the others, who are our family, the
family we belong to today...whose pain shaped us in these four years of fighting. Europe nearly committed suicide."
Speaks of counting the dead after the armistice, of all the families who waited in vain months after the end for loved ones to come home. Gives some numbers on the dead, the wounded, the widowed and the orphaned. "the world had discovered the wounds that the combatant
fervor had obscured." People came from around the world to die in villages in France whose names they did not even know. Many who made it home lost their youth, their dreams, their appetite for life. Or blind, disfigured, amputated.
1918 seems very far away but it was only yesterday. Macron has seen land in France still gray, still ruined. Seen the monuments with French and foreign soldiers who died in France. German and French soldiers' bones side by side in mass graves. Traces of that war have not faded.
Well, the BBC decided they had had enough of Macron and France and abruptly cut to Great Britain and Prince Charles. I guess that's it for me, then.
