French President Jacques Chirac inaugurated a memorial today to the thousands of Muslims who died during World War One at a ceremony marking the 90th anniversary of the blood-soaked battle of Verdun.
The commemoration has came at a time of turbulence in France's relations with its multi-ethnic minorities and a senior Muslim leader said he hoped the belated recognition of his community's war dead would help ease the tensions.
Mr Chirac himself looked back almost with nostalgia at the way France rallied together in 1916 to fight off the Germans.
"This ceremony reminds us how in that moment of history, at Verdun and for Verdun, the French nation knew how to unite," he said after laying a wreath at the monument.
Separate memorials already stand for the Christians and Jews who died in the mud and misery of the trenches, but up until Sunday, the Muslims only had a small plaque dedicated to them.
France mobilised close to 600,000 colonial subjects, including many from Muslim territories such as Algeria and Tunisia, during World War One, of whom 78,000 were killed. Total French dead numbered 1.2 million.
Some of France's former colonies have complained that France has been ungrateful to its colonial troops, arguing that without their efforts, Paris would have fallen to the Germans.
Dalil Boubakeur, the head of the French Muslim Council, told reporters he hoped the new memorial would help close old wounds.
"I hope (this provides) an impulse for the future for a closer integration of all of France's Muslim communities which are also ... completely French communities, thanks in no small part to the blood they have shed," he said.
A wave of rioting in mainly poor, immigrant suburbs rocked France last autumn, laying bare the difficulties the country faced in integrating its multi-ethnic societies.