(FILES) - A picture taken on September 22, 1984 on a battlefield in Verdun, eastern France, shows German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (R) and French president Francois Mitterrand holding hands to reaffirm French-German reconciliation, during a ceremony commemorating the victims of the World Wars in Douaumont. France and Germany marked 50 years of reconciliation Sunday but the desecration of German war graves marred a meeting of their leaders that could ease tensions on tackling the euro debt crisis. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande arrived at the Rheims cathedral, a UNESCO world heritage side extensively damaged by German bombing during World War I, for the event on July 8, 2012. AFP PHOTO / MARCEL MOCHET.
(FILES) - A picture taken on September 22, 1984 on a battlefield in Verdun, eastern France, shows German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (R) and French president Francois Mitterrand holding hands to reaffirm French-German reconciliation, during a ceremony commemorating the victims of the World Wars in Douaumont. France and Germany marked 50 years of reconciliation Sunday but the desecration of German war graves marred a meeting of their leaders that could ease tensions on tackling the euro debt crisis. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande arrived at the Rheims cathedral, a UNESCO world heritage side extensively damaged by German bombing during World War I, for the event on July 8, 2012. AFP PHOTO / MARCEL MOCHET