Editing Arc de Triomphe (section)

=== Tomb of the Unknown Soldier ===
[[File:Paris Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile Grabmal des Unbekannten Soldaten 2.jpg|thumb|[[Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (France)|Tomb of the Unknown Soldier]] beneath the Arc de Triomphe.]]

Beneath the Arc is the [[Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (France)|Tomb of the Unknown Soldier]] from [[World War I]]. Interred on [[Armistice Day]] 1920,<ref name="NaourAllen2005">{{cite book |last1=Naour |first1=Jean-Yves Le |last2=Allen |first2=Penny |title=The Living Unknown Soldier: A Story of Grief and the Great War |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3E3PRfQdBosC&pg=PA78 |access-date=28 July 2011 |date=16 August 2005 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-8050-7937-1 |page=74}}</ref> an eternal flame burns in memory of the dead who were never identified (now in both world wars).<ref name=granfield>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xw9Cw3Khj68C&pg=PP15 |title=The Unknown Soldier |publisher=North Winds Press |first=Linda |last=Granfield |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-4399-3558-6 |access-date=18 March 2023 |archive-date=20 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231120085157/https://books.google.com/books?id=Xw9Cw3Khj68C&pg=PP15 |url-status=live }}</ref>

A ceremony is held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier every 11 November on the anniversary of the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918]] signed by the [[Allies of World War I|Entente Powers]] and [[German Reich|Germany]] in 1918. It was originally decided on 12 November 1919 to bury the unknown soldier's remains in the [[Panthéon]], but a public letter-writing campaign led to the decision to bury him beneath the Arc de Triomphe. The coffin was put in the chapel on the first floor of the Arc on 10 November 1920, and put in its final resting place on 28 January 1921.<ref name=granfield/> The slab on top bears the inscription: ''Ici repose un soldat français mort pour la Patrie, 1914–1918'' ("Here rests a French soldier who died for the Fatherland, 1914–1918").<ref name=granfield/>

In 1961, U.S. President [[John F. Kennedy]] and First Lady [[Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis|Jacqueline Kennedy]] paid their respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, accompanied by President [[Charles de Gaulle]]. After the 1963 [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|assassination of President Kennedy]], Mrs. Kennedy remembered the eternal flame at the Arc de Triomphe and requested that an eternal flame be placed next to her husband's grave at [[Arlington National Cemetery]] in Virginia.<ref>{{cite book| last=Gormley| first=Beatrice| author2=Meryl Henderson| title=Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Friend of the Arts| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F03mk7v-QxUC&q=eternal+flame| pages=142–43| date=11 May 2010| publisher=Simon and Schuster| location=New York| isbn=978-1-4391-1358-5| access-date=1 August 2024| url-access=subscription}}</ref>