Macron tells Trump and Putin:
WORLD leaders gathered in Paris yesterday for the Armistice centenary amid one of France’s greatest ever security operations.
US President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte at the solemn ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who was the last to arrive, gave Mr Trump a thumbs up in an apparent gesture of friendship.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau were also among the heads of state and royals attending.
Prime Minister Theresa May was in London at the Cenotaph yesterday, having paid her respects to the war dead in France two days earlier when she joined Mr Macron on the Somme battlefield.
At the ceremony the leaders listened to translations on headphones as Mr Macron paid tribute to the 10 million troops killed in the war on all sides and offered a vision of reconciliation.
He said: “The lesson of the Great War cannot be that of resentment between peoples, nor should the past be forgotten.
“It is our deeply rooted obligation to think of the future, and to consider what is essential.”
Mr Macron, who is committed to the EU, also warned nationalism was on the rise again in Europe. He described it as a “betrayal of patriotism”. However, his message could also have been aimed at Mr Trump, who is pursuing a more isolationist “America First” policy, and Mr Putin who is presiding over a burgeoning Russian military and who annexed the Crimea from the Ukraine in 2014.
Mr Macron said: “Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is betrayal. Old demons are reawakening, ready to sow chaos and death.
“History sometimes threatens to repeat its tragic patterns, and undermine the legacy of peace we thought we had sealed with the blood of our ancestors.”
The world leaders also listened to children reading letters written by German, French and British soldiers during the war.
About 10,000 police officers backed by military and counter-