November 11, 2024: What to commemorate this public holiday Monday ?

“November 11, 2024: what commemorations this Monday holiday ?”

ARMISTICE NOVEMBER 11. On this holiday, France commemorates the signing of the 1918 Armistice between Germany and the Triple Entente. All day long, c& eacute;rémonies celebrate this symbolic date.

[Updated November 8, 2024 at 5:48 p.m.] November 11 marks the anniversary of the 1918 Armistice. This document, signed between Germany and the Triple Entente (France, Great Britain, and the United States) and a prelude to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, suspended the fighting that had been raging for four years between the two camps. Every year, in France, this symbolic day is celebrated by a series of ceremonies paying tribute to the soldiers of the Great War who died for France, at the approximately 30,000 war memorials erected in French towns and villages.

This Monday, November 11, 2024, is also an opportunity for some to get together with family, go for a walk or do a little shopping. The ideal time to redo your wardrobe as winter approaches or start looking for Christmas presents. Parisians will also be delighted to be able to take advantage of exceptionally free parking spaces in the city (with a yellow dot on the parking meter). Discover in our file below the program of the commemoration of November 11, but also the stores open on this holiday.

Traditionally, on November 11 in Paris, the President of the Republic, who wears the Cornflower of France in his buttonhole, lays a wreath of tricolor flowers in front of the statue of Georges Clemenceau, President of the Council during the First World War. After walking up the Champs-Élysées, escorted by the Republican Guard, he lays a second wreath in front of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, under the Arc de Triomphe, before rekindling the flame.

Since 2012, this symbolic day has also been celebrated by a series of ceremonies paying tribute to the soldiers of the Great War, the “poilus” died for France, alongside some 30,000 war memorials erected in French towns and villages. It is also a new opportunity to walk in the footsteps of the Armistice of November 11, 1918. At exactly 11 o'clock on November 11, the commemorative bells ring in every village in France. This is the hour at which the Allied victory was announced. Two minutes of silence were then observed at the national level.

The choice of the date of November 11th is not by chance: it is a “French” choice since this date falls right on that of the traditional feast of the patron saint of the Franks, St. Martin. The cannon therefore stopped at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year 1918 on the front in the North-East of France… and consequently throughout Europe. The soldiers then came out of the trenches without fear, but the festivities were inevitably filled with mourning. From 11 o'clock in the morning on November 11, 1918, peals of bells and bugle calls announced the end of the fighting on the Western Front. They rang out after four years of war that had left a bloodless France and 1,500,000 victims, most of them young. In total, the Great War left more than 8 million dead and wounded. &At 4pm, at the Palais Bourbon, Clemenceau reads the armistice conditions. He also salutes Alsace and Lorraine while paying tribute to the Nation.

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In 1919, the project of the tribute to an unknown soldier who died in the First World War, anonymous symbol of all the "Poilus", is adopted by the French deputies. The following year, the unknown soldier who must be transferred to Paris is designated by another soldier at Verdun, by the deposit on one of the coffins of a bouquet of flowers. In the process, in 1920, the Parliament unanimously votes the following law: “Article 1: The honors of the Pantheon will be given to the remains of one of the unidentified soldiers who died on the field of honor during the 1914-1918 War. […]
Article 2: […] The remains of the Unknown Soldier will be buried under the Arc de Triomphe." This will be done on January 28, 1921. On November 24, 1922, Parliament declared November 11 a “national holiday" with the name “Remembrance Day”.From then on, November 11 became a public holiday. On November 11 of the following year, following the idea put forward by several artists, a “Flame of Remembrance” was lit by the Minister of War André Maginot. A sacred flame that a “Flame Committee” has since had the task of rekindling every day at dusk. It has never gone out, even during the Occupation. To keep it alive, a very strict ceremony of “rekindling the flame” has been observed daily for 92 years, always the same. It takes place every evening at 6:30 p.m. The Associations are led, in parade, to under the Arc de Triomphe, with the wreath bearers at the head and then the flag bearers. Flag of “The Flame”, bugle and drum of the Republican Guard are placed around the sacred slab. The Flame's bell rings out; the flame is rekindled; the wreaths are laid. Then, the bell “Aux Morts” rings out, the flags are lowered and a minute of silence follows. The Golden Book is signed, people greet each other and then everyone finally meets at the foot of the tomb, to listen to the musicians play “Honour to the Unknown Soldier”.

November 11 marks the anniversary of the Armistice of 1918. This document, signed between Germany and the Triple Entente (France, Great Britain, and the United States) and a prelude to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, suspended the fighting that had been raging for four years between the two camps. Every year, in France, this symbolic day is celebrated with a series of ceremonies paying tribute to the soldiers of the Great War who died for France, at some 30,000 war memorials built in French towns and villages.

The 1918 armistice is a treaty which occupies a large place in history.What happened on November 11, 1918 ? After the failure of the German offensives of June and July 1918 during the Great War, the Americans and British began an offensive in August 1918 which definitively pushed back the German forces. After two months of resistance by the German General Staff, the text of the armistice was negotiated and signed in the “Armistice Wagon” on November 11, 1918, at 5:15 a.m. This was Marshal Foch's command wagon near the Allied headquarters, not far from the Rethondes station in the Oise. At 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918, the armistice took effect on the front.

By signing the famous treaty at Rethondes on November 11, 1918, the Allied forces and Germany officially ended their conflict by setting several conditions. Also on November 11, Charles I, then Emperor of Austria, finally renounced the throne – his Habsburg dynasty had reigned for more than 600 years. For 100 years, even among the youngest, November 11 has symbolized the outcome of the Great War.

The November 11 meeting contains many anecdotes, and its history remains unknown or forgotten by many former schoolchildren. What did the Treaty of Versailles say? What were the conditions of the 1918 armistice? Find out more in our file dedicated to the armistice 1918.

Saint-Martin is the patron saint of France. Christian tradition has it that “When Clovis attributed his victory of 507 to the protection of Saint-Martin and Saint-Hilaire, Saint-Martin then became the patron saint of the Franks. The Merovingians were then imitated by the Carolingians and later by the Capetians who declared themselves “lay abbots of St Martin of Tours”.