FRENCH VILLAGE REBUILT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

FRENCH VILLAGE REBUILT.

SYMBOL OF DETERMINATION* || An inspiring example of the spirit in ' which ' Fran is reoairino- the ruins of .-gift ■war in her devastated departments is to be seen at Avion, a village adjacent to Lens, which, at the time of tha araiis- v; tice, was a vast heap of debris- ana va ,j«| which the only thing that could be identi- ;■ . j fied with certainty was what remained of the old belfry. All else had been levelled to the ground. Lens and w# |: j adjoining villages have now risen agfj", ' % on their old site, and though much sfcitt remains to be done, the essential thing® ,"j have been completed. All the workers , . are housed again, in many cases mucft : better than they were befo'e the wars and at Avion, a village occupied by fWJ * J',< way workers on the Nord line,- the 010 , /if settlement has given place to a baautiW* garden village of spacious streets ana ' > pretty \i»las, each with its own .:•$ of ground. The tow Avion, erected ojl . the Nord Railway Company, and inaugurated recently by M. Ogier, a for®®* Minister of the Liberated Regions, stand « now an a symbol oftho determination the martyred communes of Franca, no - only to repair their ruins, but to em erg" from the ordeal better than thaj befor<». ; ■ r » " ''*• w 1 " ' ' ■ ?•■. ." W: