Europe remembers Armistice Day with ceremonies
Source: AP-EXCITE
By SYLVIE CORBET
PARIS (AP) — Europe is marking Armistice Day with ceremonies and moments of silence as France opens an international memorial on a former battlefield.
This year's events have special significance because 2014 is the centenary of the start of World War I. Tuesday is the 96th anniversary of the armistice that ended the war on Nov. 11, 1918.
French President Francois Hollande laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier under Paris' Arc de Triomphe. Later, he will head to northern France to inaugurate an international war memorial at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette in the presence of German, British and Belgian officials. The Ring of Memory carries the names of 600,000 soldiers who died in the region during the war. Names are listed alphabetically without their nationalities.
A few hours before the ceremony, a military helicopter forced a plane dragging a banner calling for Hollande's resignation over the memorial to land.
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The near completed ceramic poppy art installation by artist Paul Cummins entitled "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red" is lit up before sunrise in the dry moat of the Tower of London in London, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014. The finished installation will be made up of 888,246 ceramic poppies, with the final poppy being placed on Armistice Day today. Each poppy represents a British and Commonwealth military fatality from World War I. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
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