gersfrance32

hello,
can anyone tell me the time of 11 November ceremony so I do not miss the service?

Blackladder

Hi,
Our commune is holding a ceremony starting at 10:45, but if you are thinking about a Remembrance service in the UK, it was yesterday!
Blackie

dmu

If you mean on the TV, it starts at 10h00 on France 2.
If you mean a local ceremony, ask today at your Mairie, or they should all be published in the regional press. They usually start early enough for everyone to settle down for the minute's silence at 11h00.
For newcomers, the French equivalent of the British Poppy is the "Bleuet" (cornflower), but you don't see them around in my area.

grannybunz

We meet up at the Marie at 10.45 and process to the war memorial for 11.00.

It is NOT a service - completely secular. Some of the children read the names of the fallen and the presidential address is read. Afterwards everyone retreats to the village hall and madame le maire pours pastis and wine for the adults and juice for the children, who hand round aperos.

We wear our poppies, sent every year from the UK, and are allowed to add a little bunch of aritificial poppies after the other tributes have been laid - poppy crosses would not be tactful!

cjm

dmu is correct, your Mairie will know. We receive an invitation from the Mairie in the post. Here it is assembly 11.45, ceremony at 12.00 (just few metres from the Mairie), then a vin d'honneur at 12.15. We shall be there, our poppies worn which will prompt some conversation.

gersfrance32

well I went 10 .30am and found out that they had FINISHED. BIT OF A SHOCK!!! It starts at 9.30am because the officials who have the flags etc come at that time and then go to other villages. They therefore do Not do the 1 minute silence at the memorial but wherever they are a the time. So I missed the rendez vous.

bigglesworth

Oh Tough Luck!
For our commune this was the first time for many years (although we do have a memorial with the names of the 14 dead). Previously we have had to scour the countryside if we wanted to be in company.
The last couple we have done a lonely vigil at the memorial.

Peabrain

The difference between the ceremonies of remembrance in Britain and France is interesting. Ask any Frenchman at what time the First World War officially ended and the chances are he'll look blank. He'll no doubt think it's a silly question too. Ask French kids why they get to stay in bed le onze novembre; more blank looks. No French equivalent of Big Ben to chime the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The ceremony at the Cenotaph may be the closest the UK gets to a demonstration of national unity, with representatives of all religions, government and opposition together for once, representatives of the Commonwealth nations etc, gathered around an "empty tomb" and its simple, three-word epitaph to "The Glorious Dead.".
All impossible in France, where the national ceremony of remembrance takes place at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe, built to glorify wars of conquest, covered with the names of great and glorious military victories. With her inflexible approach to secularity, a religious service is unthinkable, even though in 1914 France was a predominantly Roman Catholic country, despite the separation of Church and State in 1905. As for having the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in a church, or the official ceremonies on a Sunday, well, that would never do. It's also sad to see the refusal of the political class to get together just for once in remembrance of the one million, four hundred thousand Frenchmen who were slaughtered between 1914 and 1918, and the difficulties involved in honouring representatives of the former colonies that also fought and died in large numbers.
The British monarchy has its faults, especially when it comes to the parasites and hangers-on it still has in tow, but an apolitical head of state, however doddery, certainly has advantages over a president, who may have been elected, but is still the representative of just one political party or ideology.
With the ceremonies surrounding the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War One has come a lot of interest in the way the British do things. There was a whole-page article in Monday's La Croix about the British military cemeteries in Northern France, called "Des jardins anglais pour les morts au combat". The poppies at the Tower of the London have also had coverage, as the French perhaps realize that it is a pity not to have something that symbolizes the blood shed 'in Flanders Fields.'

cjm

A point I didn't, share was that the invite to the village was marked as the 96th anniversary of the armistice, a further incongruous fact that I will seek advice on from French friends, true though it may be.

bigglesworth

The 96th bit was (quite seriously) so as not to upset Germany.

Those of us with a basic grasp of arithmetic will have noticed that 2014 is in fact the centenary of.....

1914

The remembance was originally planned to comemorate exactly that.
The the European Commissiom intervened and suggested that in a United Europe that might be insensitive to Germany.

I do not know whether the Commission intends that we should comemorate the 97th, 98th and 99th as well

And the 104th anniversary of the start of the Great War will surely be fixed in our minds forever

Incidentally the LEGAL end of the war was surely 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles was signed

cjm

You have more knowledge than me Biggsie. I suppose the exceptional national focus on the 100 year factor in the UK pre-focused my thinking, so the unemotional note from the Mairie, with the armistice as the key focus here pushed me slightly off balance. That said, does it matter. We together with our French friends in this small village, came together to honour those who gave their lives for freedom and democracy. As has been said: Lest we forget.

bigglesworth

Cj I agree entirely.
I am one of those humbled every year.