World leaders to descend for WWI remembrance

PARIS - France kicks off a week of World War I commemorations from Sunday, with about 80 leaders from around the globe preparing to fly in for a ceremony marking a century since the guns fell silent.

The commemorations will culminate in a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Nov 11 attended by dozens of leaders, 100 years to the day since the armistice.

French President Emmanuel Macron is gearing up for a busy week of diplomacy that will see him play host to leaders including US President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

He will also be crisscrossing northern France, visiting the battlefields where hundreds of thousands of men lost their lives in the trenches.

Merkel will also mark the 100th anniversary on French soil, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will be in London at a ceremony in Westminster Abbey with Queen Elizabeth II.

Although there aren't any national commemorations in Germany marking the war's end, individual events are planned, including an exhibition at the German Historical Museum in Berlin. A special WWI religious service is also being organized by the German Bishops Conference at the Berliner Dom cathedral.

And in addition to German officials taking part in the events in London and Paris, the Foreign Ministry said they and their British counterparts have worked together to coordinate the ringing of church and secular bells around the world on Nov 11 to mark the war's centenary.

"The bells will ring at midday to commemorate the more than 17 million victims of World War I and as a call for understanding and reconciliation across borders," the ministry said.

Friendship concert

Remembrance events began on Sunday with a concert celebrating friendship between former wartime enemies France and Germany in the border city of Strasbourg, attended by Macron and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Macron will then spend the week visiting the Western Front battlefields, from Verdun to the Somme.

After next Sunday's ceremony, world leaders are set to attend a three-day peace forum opened by Merkel, an event which France wants to turn into an annual multilateral peace conference.

AFP - AP