"It's raining but it's not serious," The French Army tweeted.
ADVERTISEMENTThe French Army appeared to take a swipe at Donald Trump on Monday for citing bad weather as the reason the American President could not go on a planned visit to a war cemetery.
On its Twitter page, France's armed forces posted a picture of a soldier, crawling on the ground during training and wrote: "It's raining but it's not serious. We're staying motivated" adding the #MondayMotivation hashtag.
Some 60 world leaders gathered in Paris over the weekend to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1918 armistice which put an end to the Great War.
The US President had been scheduled to visit the American war cemetery at Belleau, about 90 kilometres east of the French capital, on Saturday but cancelled the visit.
Why? The rain, which prevented him from flying there in the Marine One helicopter due to "near-zero visibility," according to White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders. A motorcade could not be used as an alternative mode of transport for fears of creating traffic jams, Sanders said.
Trump visited the Suresnes American cemetery, just outside Paris, on Sunday and attended the main ceremony on the Champs Elysées, in central Paris. He did not join the march when his fellow world leaders undertook the task under unrelenting rain.
The French Army's tweet was interpreted online as a jibe and followed countless posts, tagged to Trump, showing world leaders, including former US President Barack Obama, paying tributes to troops in the rain.
But the French Army later said that their post was not meant to mock the US leader.
"Apologies to those who thought they could interpret it, but no reference was to be perceived behind what is a usual activity for soldiers which this morning, took place under the rain!" it said in a Twitter post.