Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday jointly inaugurated India's new consulate in Marseille, France. PM Modi is visiting France at the invitation of President Macron. The inauguration took place with the press of a button, amid cheers from the gathered crowd.
Prior to the inauguration, Modi and Macron visited the historic Mazargues Cemetery, and paid tribute to the Indian soldiers who made sacrifices fighting in the Great War.
PM Modi visited the historic Mazargues Cemetery to pay tribute to Indian soldiers who fought in the Great War. During a solemn ceremony, both leaders laid wreaths, with Modi offering his respects at the site, which also features an 'Indian Memorial'.
The two leaders later walked through the cemetery, placing roses on memorial tablets within a stone pavilion. The cemetery, maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), commemorates a significant number of Indian soldiers.
According to the CWGC, the site commemorates 1,487 casualties from 1914-18 and 267 from 1939-45, including 205 Indian casualties who were cremated and are honoured on a memorial at the cemetery's rear. The Mazargues Indian Memorial was unveiled in July 1925 by Field Marshal Sir William Birdwood.
The cemetery also honours eight members of the Egyptian Labour Corps, whose graves were lost, with a stone tablet on the cemetery's left-hand wall. Covering an area of 9,021 sq m, Mazargues is a suburb in the 9th Arrondissement, about six kilometres from central Marseille.
Marseille served as a base for Indian troops during the 1914-18 war. The Royal Navy, Merchant Navy, British troops, and labour units operated in the port. Four town cemeteries were primarily used for burying Commonwealth forces who died in Marseille. Hindu soldiers and labourers were cremated at St. Pierre Cemetery between 1914-16.
Le Canet Old and New Cemeteries were used from 1917-19 for Indian soldiers and labourers from India, Egypt, and China. Mazargues Cemetery, located on the south-east side, was used less frequently during the war. Before the Armistice, an extension was made to accommodate bodies or ashes from the four town cemeteries and Port St. Louis-du-Rhone Communal Cemetery.
In April 2015, during a visit to France, Prime Minister Modi paid homage to the World War I memorial in Neuve Chapelle, honouring around 4,700 Indian soldiers who died in battles in France and Belgium. "Our soldiers who fought in foreign lands in the Great War have won the admiration of the world for their dedication, loyalty, courage, and sacrifice. I salute them," Modi wrote in the visitor's book at the memorial.
PM Modi is on a three-day visit to France, having co-chaired the AI Action Summit with President Macron and addressed business leaders. He arrived in Paris on February 10.