[Mark W. Tonner]

France's reaction:

Chirac apologises for desecration

President Jacques Chirac apologised to the Queen for the desecration of a British war cemetery on the Channel coast. He said saying the French had not forgotten the debt they owe British soldiers who died liberating their country. In a letter to the Queen, Chirac described the scrawling of anti-war graffiti on monuments at a First World War cemetery in Etaples, near Calais, as "inadmissible and shameful."

From the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site:

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission shares the disgust and dismay expressed by many people at the recent act of vandalism in Etaples Military Cemetery, France, in protest at the war in Iraq. The cemetery, in which there are over 11,000 burials, mainly First World and many of nationalities other than British, is a place of commemoration ill fitted to such protests.

The paint on one of the central features in the cemetery was quickly removed by the Commission's staff and the French authorities, who share the Commission's shock and concern, have launched an immediate investigation into the incident

What the idiots did: