France celebrated its national holiday Friday with whizzing warplanes and a grand Bastille Day parade in Paris — and with more than 100,000 police deployed around the country to prevent a new outbreak of unrest in underprivileged neighborhoods.
This year, the celebrations marking the start of the French Revolution on July 14, 1789 come in the wake of the nation’s most serious rioting in nearly 20 years, following the fatal police shooting of a teenager with North African roots that laid bare anger over entrenched inequality and racial discrimination.
The national celebrations come at a delicate time for Macron, who was also booed by some members of the public as he drove down the Champs-Elysees in a military car.
His decision to raise the retirement age sparked months of protests this spring and has hurt his popularity ratings.
Modi began a two-day visit to Paris on Thursday, when he was granted the Legion of Honour, France's highest award.
India is the guest of honor at this year’s Bastille Day parade, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi watching in the VIP tribune alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. About 240 Indian troops led the march down the Champs-Elysees before thousands of French forces, and French-made Indian warplanes joined the traditional flyby above the event.
France often showcases international partners on Bastille Day, and the choice of India comes as France looks to further strengthen cooperation on fighting climate change, military sales and the strategic Indo-Pacific region. But human rights were missing from the vast agenda, despite concerns raised by European lawmakers, rights groups and others.
Russia’s war in Ukraine — central to last year’s Bastille Day celebrations – echoed in this year’s events as well. Vehicles on display included the Caesar anti-missile batteries that France is providing to Ukraine, and Ukrainian officials were invited to join Macron in the VIP seats.
On the eve of France’s national day, Macron gave a posthumous Legion of Honor award to a French journalist killed in Ukraine earlier this year, Arman Soldin of news agency Agence France-Presse.
The Bastille Day parade included 6,500 people marching, 94 planes and helicopters, 219 ground vehicles, 200 horses and 86 dogs. Festivities are held in towns and cities around France to commemorate the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 that marked the start of the French Revolution, and to celebrate France’s ideals of “liberty, equality and fraternity.”
Macron has treated only a few global leaders to the Bastille Day military parade.
He invited Donald Trump for the 2017 celebrations, and the then U.S. president was so impressed by the French march-past that he asked Pentagon officials to explore a similar parade in celebration of American troops.
Reporting by Michel Rose Editing by Frances Kerry and Nick Macfie
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