Jacques Pilet pays tribute to the last French 'poilu'

"The life of Lazare [Ponticelli], born in 1897, is an enlightening European novel", writes columnist Jacques Pilet in a text dedicated to the last surviving French veteran of the First World War. "He came over from his native Italy aged 10 ... . In 1914, he enlisted in the Foreign Legion and was sent straight off to the frontline. ... When the Second World War broke out he was judged too old to fight. So he joined the Resistance. Ever since then, he spent a lot of time in schools, giving interviews to the press, telling the true version of history (...) Lazare Ponticelli is inspirational. It is difficult to think of any other person who, over half a century, could shed such a lucid vision on the most recent wars. The former Yugoslavian who became an EU citizen and who spoke of the Balkan massacres with the same feelings of absurdity and disgust."

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