I live in a part of France that suffered badly in both World Wars, and in tiny villages you find war memorials listing what is, for the size of the place, sometimes a shockingly large number people who died.

Yet when it comes to commemorative statuary, there is a striking difference between France and Britain or the USA. In the latter, soldiers are always strong, tight-lipped, full of masculine maturity, self-confident resolve, muscled bravery: a supposedly impressive invulnerability. French soldiers are far more touchingly depicted as very, very young - which of course most were - and fragile. They are shown as delicate and vulnerable, rather than the opposite. This is incomparably more effective.

The example above, though, is not typical, but highly unusual, for its being coloured, for the originality of having the soldier standing on the steps of his own memorial, as it were, and for the bold, charming, giddy insouciance of the whole. Like all of those I've seen, however, it speaks eloquently of the innocence of those sacrificed.

(This time the photographer was me.)