Rene Riffaud, 108; belatedly honored as French WWI veteran

Rene Riffaud, 108, one of France’s last World War I veterans, died overnight Tuesday, leaving three known French survivors of the 1914-18 conflict, the national veterans office said from Paris.

Of the three surviving World War I veterans, the oldest -- Louis de Cazenave -- is 109, according to the veterans office.

Only belatedly, in 2006, did France recognize Riffaud as a veteran of the war, giving him an official veteran’s card after his granddaughter brought his case to the government’s attention.

In a November interview with the Associated Press before attending Armistice Day commemorations in Paris, Riffaud played down his war role.

“I did like everyone else, I went with the flow. I was mobilized like all other citizens,” he said.

The veterans office said he was born Dec. 12, 1898, in Tunisia and joined a colonial artillery unit in April 1917. He told the AP he was in a village in eastern France when the war ended Nov. 11, 1918.

“We were guarding a bridge. An officer arrived and told us that the armistice had just been signed,” he said. “We went to town to celebrate, to eat bread that wasn’t blackened, and we amused ourselves by watching the flights of geese taking off to go and bathe in the Rhine.”

He worked as an electrician after leaving the military.