Veteran re-enlists 90 years on

PARIS - A living unknown soldier has emerged from the mists of time and claimed his place among the "last patrol" of surviving French veterans of World War I.

Rene Riffaud, 107, was so horrified by his experiences of the trenches that he refused to sign up as an official "veteran" in the 1920s. Now, at the urging of his family he wants to "re-enlist" and join the six other official French survivors.

His request - likely to be approved this week - has more than just personal or sentimental importance. President Jacques Chirac has pledged that the last surviving French soldier of the 1914-18 war will be given a full state funeral. Riffaud's re-enlistment will give him a lottery ticket for everlasting fame as the "last poilu"("hairy man", the French nickname for Great War veterans).

Born in Tunisia on December 19, 1898, Riffaud was called up in the 42nd regiment of colonial artillery in 1917 and fought in the Ardennes during the final allied offensives of September to November 1918.

Now living in a retirement home in Eure, in upper Normandy, his lungs are still scarred by the mustard gas that he inhaled on the battlefield.

Riffaud says that he did not apply for a veteran's card because: "I didn't have fond memories of the war ... I never wanted to attend any ceremonies. That would have brought back memories of barbarity. Oh, no, no, no ..."

He retired in 1973 as manager of a company that manufactured electric motors near Paris. "I was a 'poilu', or someone will have to prove that I wasn't. I went along with all the others to smash my head in places that weren't much fun."

Another veteran, Francois Jaffre, 104, was recently re-discovered. He served as a sailor on anti-submarine ships in Atlantic troop convoys. He signed up as a veteran but was wrongly declared dead after a change of address. He has been found in a nursing home at Yvelines.

There are five other known survivors of more than seven million French soldiers, sailors and airmen. The oldest, identified only as "Maurice", is 111 and was twice injured and seriously disfigured.

The rediscovery of Riffaud and Jaffre raises awkward questions. Are there other centenarians out there like them? Could France bury its last "poilu" with state honours only to discover that he was not the last after all?

- INDEPENDENT