How France has forgotten the Christmas truce soldiers

The Artois region in France still carries the scars of bitter fighting and loss from the trenches of World War One. So why shouldn't one moment of camaraderie between enemies be celebrated and remembered, asks Christian Carion. Memories of World War One can be seen everywhere in the quiet part of the Artois region in northern France where I was born. The war left a trail of cemeteries with well-tended lawns in the midst of fields. Crops now grow around the edges of these spaces where 20-year-old kids from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Great Britain and other countries lie. Forty nations buried their sons in the earth of my homeland. While still a kid, I learnt the names and flags of these countries. I was able to revise my geography while learning about the history of this war. Every autumn, my father and I collected artillery shells which had been brought to the surface by ploughing. We carried them in our arms and laid them down at the entrance to our fields. A Renault 4 from the Prefecture came to load them up like potatoes and spirit them away. Researchers have estimated that the earth will continue to give its own unique account of the Great War for a further seven centuries.