FRANCE: Intruders have vandalised dozens of graves at Saint Aubert cemetery in the north of France where the bodies of Commonwealth troops who fought in the first World War lie buried.
French War Veterans Minister Hamlaoui Mekachera condemned what he described as "an inadmissible offence to the memory of British, Canadian and New Zealand soldiers who fought in France in World War One and should be let rest in peace on our soil".
A line of tombstones lay broken, as if they had been kicked over.
"This is the work of idiots, born idiots," Mr Jacques Parent, mayor of Saint Aubert village, said.
The Foreign Ministry said it hoped an inquiry started by police after the vandalism was spotted by a local farmer on Monday would rapidly track down the culprits.
"This desecration is an insult to the memory of all the Commonwealth soldiers who died for the freedom of our country," the ministry's statement said. President Jacques Chirac sent a letter of apology to Britain in April after vandals defaced the graves of British soldiers at Etaples cemetery. - (Reuters)