Last French WW1 veteran laid to rest

France has given full military honours to its last World War I veteran, Lazare Ponticelli, who died on Wednesday at the age of 110.

President Nicolas Sarkozy led a ceremony in Paris to commemorate him, and eight million other Frenchmen who fought in the conflict. . .

Mr Ponticelli, originally Italian, had lied about his age in order to join the French Foreign Legion in 1914, aged 16.

There are a handful of surviving WWI veterans from other countries, including British pilot Henry Allingham and Austro-Hungarian artillery man Franz Kunstler. . .

The last of Germany's veterans from the war . . . died in January.

Posted by David on March 17, 2008 8:34 PM