PARIS: A senior French government official said Monday the memory of the French soldiers who died in Afghanistan should not be tarnished following US President Donald Trump\u2019s false assertion that troops from non-US NATO countries avoided the front line during that war.<\/p>\n
Alice Rufo, the minister delegate at the Defense Ministry, laid a wreath at a monument in downtown Paris dedicated to those who died for France in overseas operations. Speaking to reporters, Rufo said the ceremony had not been planned until the weekend, adding that it was crucial to show that \u201cwe do not accept that their memory be insulted.\u201d<\/p>\n
In October 2001, nearly a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the US led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy Al-Qaeda, which had used the country as its base, and the group\u2019s Taliban hosts.<\/p>\n
Alongside the US were troops from dozens of countries, including from NATO, whose mutual-defense mandate had been triggered for the first time after the attacks on New York and Washington. In an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland, Trump on Thursday claimed that non-US NATO troops stayed \u201ca little off the frontlines\u201d in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Ninety French soldiers died in the conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt such a moment, it is symbolically important to be there for their families, for their memory, and to remind everyone of the sacrifice they made on the front line,\u201d Rufo said.<\/p>\n
After his comments caused an outcry, Trump appeared to backpedal and heaped praise on the British soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. He had no words for other troops, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have seen the statements, in particular from veterans\u2019 associations, their outrage, their anger, and their sadness,\u201d Rufo said, adding that trans-Atlantic solidarity should prevail over polemics.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, there is a brotherhood of arms between Americans, Britons, and French soldiers when we go into combat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS: A senior French government official said Monday the memory of the French soldiers who died in Afghanistan should not be tarnished following US President Donald Trump\u2019s false assertion that troops from non-US NATO countries avoided the front line during that war. Alice Rufo, the minister delegate at the Defense Ministry, laid a wreath at …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":92826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92828,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92809\/revisions\/92828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}