France's Bastille Day parade meets the Olympic torch relay in an exceptional year

Source: Associated Press

Updated 1:32 AM PDT, July 14, 2024

PARIS (AP) — Paris is hosting an extra-special guest for France’s national holiday Sunday — the Olympic flame lighting up the city’s grandiose military parade for Bastille Day. Just 12 days before the French capital hosts exceptionally ambitious and high-security Summer Games, the torch relay is joining up with thousands of soldiers, sailors, rescuers and medics marching in Paris beneath roaring fighter jets to mark Bastille Day.

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What does Bastille Day celebrate? On July 14, 1789, revolutionaries stormed the Bastille fortress and prison in Paris, heralding the start of the French Revolution and the end of the monarchy. The holiday is central to the French calendar, with events across the country. It aims to embody the national motto of ‘’liberty, equality and fraternity,” though not everyone in France feels the country lives up to that promise.

The Paris parade is the holiday’s highlight. This year, it’s paying tribute to those who freed France from Nazi occupation 80 years ago, with a re-enactment of the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944, and a display of emblems of the 31 countries whose troops contributed to the liberation. About half are African nations that were under French colonial rule during World War II.

Usually, the parade travels from the Napoleon-era Arc de Triomphe to the Concorde plaza, where France’s last king and queen were beheaded. This year, Concorde has been transformed into a huge Olympic venue for breakdancing, skateboarding and BMX. So the parade route headed to the Bois de Boulogne park on the city’s edge instead.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/paris-france-bastille-day-olympic-torch-d33f90230ffa2a2c3c95873e3e167a36