France paid tribute on Monday to soldiers killed during the war in Afghanistan, after US President Donald Trump made what French officials described as a false claim that non-US NATO troops avoided frontline combat.
Alice Rufo, a junior defence minister, laid a wreath at a monument in central Paris honouring French troops who died in overseas operations. She said the ceremony was organised at short notice to defend the memory of those killed.
“We cannot accept that their memory be insulted,” Rufo told reporters, according to the Associated Press.
Trump said last week that NATO troops from countries other than the United States stayed “a little off the frontlines” during the Afghanistan war, comments made in an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland.
US-led forces entered Afghanistan in October 2001, nearly a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, aiming to dismantle al Qaeda and remove the Taliban government that harboured the group.
Dozens of countries took part in the campaign, including NATO allies after the alliance invoked its collective defence clause for the first time in its history following the attacks on New York and Washington.
Ninety French soldiers were killed during the conflict, according to official figures.
