They are known as the ders des ders, the last of the last, and they will soon be gone. Aged between 105 and 110 and with a life expectancy measured in months not years, 14 soldiers are all that remain of the vast French armies of the first world war. In the hills above Verdun, the fortress town near the German border, a sense of impending loss is palpable as the last guardians of living memory of the fighting that scarred this area disappear one by one.

Just how they will be remembered is a question troubling Jean-Louis Dumont, who represents the Verdun area in parliament. The Socialist deputy has provoked debate by proposing a law to turn the funeral of the last poilu (French infantryman of the 1914-18 war) into a "solemn national homage" to all who fought in that conflict. This memorial service for an entire generation could, he suggests, be held at Verdun or at Douaumont, where François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl held hands in 1984 and said "Never again."