A monument to animals who died during wars inaugurated in Paris

Two plaques dedicated to horses requisitioned during the First World War already exist in the French capital and this monument above all pays tribute to the animals killed during the 1914-1918 war.

A monument paying tribute to animals who died during wars, especially that of 1914-1918, was inaugurated on Tuesday January 30 in a square in Paris, more than five years after the approval of the project. The horizon blue silhouettes – the color of the Poilus outfit – of a horse, a donkey, a dog and a soldier holding a pigeon now stand in the elegant Boucicaut square, located between Le Bon Marché and the Lutetia hotel, left bank, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.

It was a few steps away, on Boulevard Raspail, that the dog Glazier, “weakened, returning from the front, having lost track of the 26th battalion (…) to which he was attached”, recalls the explanatory plaque. Eleven million horses, 100,000 dogs and 250,000 pigeons perished during the Great War in “playing an essential role”, he is reminded. They participated in the transport of military equipment, food or mail, in relief operations and even aerial photography…

“Rethink the way we treat animals”

For the Paris Animaux Zoopolis (PAZ) association, it is the culmination of “five years of fierce campaigning”, initiated in 2018 for the centenary of the Armistice. If a wish had quickly been unanimously adopted by the Council of Paris, “elected officials opposed” to such a monument, because they considered “that monuments were reserved for humans”, its co-founder Amandine Sanvisens told AFP.

According to Laurence Patrice, deputy (PCF) for memory, PAZ “wanted that the place be linked to a historic location, which limited the choice” and explains the half-decade that passed for the project to come to fruition. “The support of the president of French Souvenir”, guarantor of the memory of the soldiers who died for France, “was decisive”says Amandine Sanvisens, recalling that Paris thus joins municipalities in the north-east of France and, abroad, some pioneering capitals: Ottawa, Canberra, London and Brussels.

“For around twenty years, the Anglo-Saxons have developed another memory where the animal takes on its own personality,” remarks Serge Barcellini, general president of Souvenir français. For Amandine Sanvisens, “this monument is an opportunity to rethink the way we treat animals”. Two plaques paying tribute to the horses requisitioned during the 1914-1918 war already exist in Paris.