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France is celebrating its biggest national holiday, Bastille Day, with military jet flyovers, a drone light show over the Eiffel Tower and fireworks in almost every city.
Around 7,000 people are marching on riding on horseback or in armoured vehicles, along the cobblestones of the iconic Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris, with events planned to take place across the country.
The holiday marks the day when Parisians stormed the Bastille fortress and prison on 14 July 1789, the event that sparked the French Revolution, ultimately overthrowing the monarchy.
In the ensuing two centuries, France witnessed Napoleon’s empire rise and fall, followed by uprisings and two world wars, before settling into today’s Fifth Republic established in 1958.
Bastille Day has become a central holiday in modern France, celebrating democracy and national pride.
The military parade beneath the Arc de Triomphe had such an impact on visiting US President Donald Trump in 2017 that it inspired him to stage his own parade earlier this year.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron is to review the troops and relight the eternal flame beneath the Arc de Triomphe.
The Paris event includes flyovers by fighter jets, trailing red, white and blue smoke. Then the evening sees a drone light show and fireworks at the Eiffel Tower.
Increasingly international nature
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-majority country, which is also a major Asian economic and military player.
On Sunday, Subianto met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, as Indonesia and Brussels reached an agreement on a trade deal that secures tariff-free access to the EU for Indonesian goods.
Indonesian troops, including 200 drummers, are marching in Monday’s parade, and Indonesia is expected to confirm new purchases of Rafale fighter jets and other French military equipment during the visit.
Finnish troops serving in the UN force in Lebanon, as well as Belgian and Luxembourg troops serving in a NATO force in Romania, will also parade through Paris, reflecting the increasingly international nature of the event.
Among the dignitaries invited to watch will be Fousseynou Samba Cisse, who rescued two babies from a burning apartment earlier this month and received a last-minute invitation in a phone call from Macron himself.
France also bestows special awards on Bastille Day — including the most prestigious, the Legion of Honour — 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.
On the eve of Bastille Day, Macron announced €6.5 billion in extra French military spending in the next two years because of new threats ranging from Russia to 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,” he said.
“’We are experiencing a return to the fact of a nuclear threat, and a proliferation of major conflicts.”
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