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The names of 291 French and Swiss soldiers who died for France during World War I were commemorated Monday on two steles added to the Franco-Swiss war memorial in Geneva.
The additional soldiers born in the Swiss city of Geneva and the surrounding region, hitherto “forgotten by history”, were found and identified by the Memoires association following extensive archive research.
The new steles were unveiled on Armistice Day in the presence of France’s Industry Minister Marc Ferracci, who until last month was the National Assembly lawmaker representing French citizens living in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Switzerland did not fight in World Wars I and II, maintaining its neutrality. Geneva is surrounded by France on three sides, with the city centre less than five kilometres (three miles) from the border.
“The imposing war memorial in front of which we are gathered celebrates the memory of the French of Geneva and Swiss volunteers who died for France,” said Ferracci.
“This monument is 100 years old and this anniversary is marked by the inscription of the names of nearly 300 other soldiers who died for France.”
The 291 new names flank the original monument adjacent to the French consulate, which lists 864 French and Swiss troops who died for France in World War I and 19 others who died in World War II.
Whether mobilised French citizens or Swiss volunteers, they were absent from the Franco-Swiss war memorial in Geneva until the Memoires association, founded in 2020 with the consulate’s backing, set itself the task of finding them.
The combatants were “lost in the archives, waiting for their names to be found”, said Nicolas Ducimetiere, the association’s president.
The initial objective was to carry out restoration work on the monument, and Memoires launched a research project “to find out if all those missing in action were indeed on this commemorative wall”, he told AFP.
“Very quickly, we realised that the archives contained people who had still slipped through the cracks due to the complexity of their status: French people who died in France but lived in Switzerland, Swiss volunteers, dual-nationals,” he said.
The association intends to tell their story in a book, drawing in particular on the memories of Genevan families.
It also wants to expand its research to World War II, focusing on Swiss resistance fighters who died in the fight to liberate France.
apo/rjm/sbk