Nearly 70 leaders from around the world will meet on Sunday to mark the centennial of a truce that ended the war that killed nearly 17 million people between a soldier and a civilian.
The leaders join French President Emmanuel Macaron at the Elysee Palace to attend the ceremony to mark the end of the war and to honor the millions of soldiers killed in the four-year war.
The ceremony begins at 11 am on 11 November. On that day in 1918, guns on the western front were silenced and the end of the bloodiest conflict in history, which lasted 4 years and claimed the lives of 10 million fighters and 7 million civilians, was declared.
On this occasion, Macaron will pay tribute to the soldiers and their families in a speech at the Arc de Triomphe erected by Emperor Napoleon in 1806, where the Unknown Soldier, symbolizing the dead of the First World War, was set up, according to Reuters.
World leaders will include US President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During the anniversary of the signing of the truce that ended the war, and in a rare show of emotion, the hands of Macron and Merkel joined Saturday, Sunday, representing two countries that were rivals in that war.
The celebrations will see reading of testimonies written by soldiers on this day 100 years ago and when the cease-fire came into effect and will be read to high school students in three languages: French, English and German.
World War I, apart from being one of the bloodiest conflicts in history, reshaped Europe's politics and population for 20 years before the world saw the outbreak of World War II.
