A 47-year-old Moroccan man has been arrested in Paris for lighting a cigarette using the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe. French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau confirmed the arrest calling the act “indecent and pathetic.” He stated that the man has been identified and taken into custody and admitted to lighting his cigarette from the sacred flame.
Why was the Moroccan man arrested in France?
“I am filing a case immediately with the Paris state prosecutors so that this man will be found and sanctions imposed to make an example of him,” Patricia Miralles, the minister for veterans and remembrance, wrote on X. “You cannot ridicule French remembrance and get away with it.”“This flame does not light a cigarette, it burns for the sacrifice of millions of our soldiers,” said Miralles.“This is an insult to our dead, to our history and to our nation.”
The incident occurred on the evening of August 4 and was captured on video by a Latvian tourist, according to Le Figaro. The footage, which shows the man bending down to light a cigarette from the flame before walking away casually while surrounded by onlookers
What is eternal flame?
In France, the Eternal Flame is a flame that burns constantly beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. André Maginot, the Minister of War at the time, lit it for the first time on November 11, 1923, in remembrance of the unidentified soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and other conflicts.
The flame represents enduring memory of those who gave their lives in defence of France. Veterans’ associations rekindle it every evening at 6:30 p.m. with a solemn ceremony. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial, which was kept beneath the Arc de Triomphe in 1921 in remembrance of all French soldiers who died and whose remains are unknown, includes the Eternal Flame.
Except for a few minor incidents, like a tourist accidentally extinguishing it, the flame has never gone out since it was first lit, not even during World War II. However, it was quickly rekindled. The cannon’s upward-pointing muzzle is encircled by a sword-shaped star, signifying military sacrifice, in the design of the flame holder. A significant custom that involves multiple veterans’ organisations and is accessible to the general public, the rekindling ceremony serves as a potent reminder of France’s reverence and remembrance for its war dead.