France's President Nicolas Sarkozy (C) speaks with former president Jacques Chirac (L) as Prime Minister Francois Fillon watches during a ceremony to pay tribute to the dead of World War One in a state funeral for Lazare Ponticelli, aged 110, France's last surviving WWI veteran, at the Invalides in Paris March 17, 2008. Ponticelli, an Italian immigrant who joined the Foreign Legion as a 16 year-old at the outbreak of the war with Germany in 1914, died last week. [Agencies]