Fireworks, warplanes and axes: How France celebrates Bastille Day

Los Angeles Times

21 hours ago

PARIS — Swooping warplanes, ax-carrying warriors, a drone light show over the Eiffel Tower and fireworks in nearly every French town — it must be Bastille Day.
France celebrated its biggest holiday Monday with 7,000 people marching, on horseback or riding armored vehicles along the cobblestones of the Champs-Elysees, the most iconic avenue in Paris. And there was also partying and pageantry around the country.
Parisians stormed the Bastille fortress and prison on July 14, 1789, a spark for the French Revolution that overthrew the monarchy. In the ensuing two centuries, France saw Napoleon's empire rise and fall, more uprisings and two world wars before settling into today's Fifth Republic, established in 1958.
Bastille Day has become a central moment for modern France, celebrating democratic freedoms and national pride, a mélange of revolutionary spirit and military prowess.
The Paris parade beneath the Arc de Triomphe so impressed visiting President Trump in 2017 that it inspired him to stage his own parade this year.
The spectacle began on the ground, with French President Emmanuel Macron reviewing the troops and relighting the eternal flame beneath the Arc de Triomphe.
Each parade uniform has a touch of symbolism. The contingent from the French Foreign Legion was eye-catching, its bearded troops wearing leather aprons and carrying axes, a reference to their original role as route clearers for advancing armies.
Near the end of the parade, a Republican Guard officer fell from one of the 200 horses, but the national gendarme service said the rider and horse were unhurt. Such incidents happen occasionally at the annual event.
The Paris event included flyovers by fighter jets, trailing red, white and blue smoke. Then the evening sees a drone light show and fireworks at the Eiffel Tower that has gotten more elaborate every year.
Every year, France hosts a special guest for Bastille Day, and this year it's Indonesia, with President Prabowo Subianto representing the world's largest Muslim country, which is also a major Asian economic and military player.
Indonesian troops, including 200 traditional drummers, marched in Monday's parade, and Indonesia is expected to confirm new purchases of Rafale fighter jets and other French military equipment during the visit. Prabowo, who was accused of rights abuses under Indonesia's previous dictatorship, will be treated to a special holiday dinner at the Elysée Palace.
'For us as Indonesian people, this is a very important and historic military and diplomatic collaboration,'' the commander of the Indonesian military delegation, Brig. Gen. Ferry Irawan, told the Associated Press.
Finnish troops serving in the U.N. force in Lebanon, and Belgian and Luxembourg troops serving in a NATO force in Romania, also paraded through Paris, reflecting the increasingly international nature of the event.
Among those invited to watch will be Fousseynou Samba Cissé, a 39-year old Paris man who rescued two babies from a burning apartment earlier this month and received a last-minute invitation in a phone call from Macron himself.
''I wasn't expecting that call,'' he told online media Brut. ''I feel pride.''
Beyond the military spectacle in Paris are growing concerns about an uncertain world. On the eve of Bastille Day, Macron announced 6.5 billion euros ($7.6 billion) in extra French military spending in the next two years because of new threats including Russia, terrorism and online attacks. The French leader called for intensified efforts to protect Europe and support for Ukraine.
''Since 1945, our freedom has never been so threatened, and never so seriously,″ Macron said. ''We are experiencing a return to the fact of a nuclear threat, and a proliferation of major conflicts.″
Security was exceptionally tight around Paris ahead of and during the parade.
It's a period when France bestows special awards — including the most prestigious, the Legion of Honor — on notable people. This year's recipients include Gisèle Pelicot, who became a global hero to victims of sexual violence during a four-month trial in which her husband and dozens of men were convicted of sexually assaulting her while she was drugged unconscious.
Others earning the honor are Yvette Levy, a Holocaust survivor and French Resistance fighter, and musician Pharrell Williams, who is a designer for Louis Vuitton.
Bastille Day is also a time for family gatherings, firefighters' balls and rural festivals around France.
Charlton writes for the Associated Press.