Joan of Arc anniversary draws French president

(AP)? DOMREMY-LA-PUCELLE, France ? French President Nicolas Sarkozy is striking back at far-right nationalists who claim fabled heroine Joan of Arc as a symbol of their own, on the 600th anniversary of her birth.

The French leader traveled Friday to Joan of Arc's birthplace in eastern France and was making a speech there.

With presidential elections this spring, the conservative Sarkozy's pilgrimage amounts to a political pre-emptive strike against the far-right National Front party that has sought to co-opt Joan of Arc as its patron saint and symbol.

The National Front ? currently led by another woman, Marine Le Pen ? is planning its own commemoration of Joan of Arc in Paris on Saturday.

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