La ville de Charenton à ses enfants morts pour la Patrie 1914-1918 1939-1945

The bronze figure you see standing before you is known as the Poilu, a classic representation of the common French soldier from the First World War. Sculpted by the artist Emile Peynot and inaugurated in 1921, the statue captures a soldier in mid-motion, caught in the act of emerging from the trenches with his rifle gripped firmly in his hand. His posture is not one of aggression, but of determined duty, intended to honor the immense sacrifice of the young men from this town who never returned from the conflict.