Over 300 vehicles and 6,500 soldiers marched down the iconic Champs-Élysées in central Paris this morning as part of today’s Bastille Day celebration, which is set to “send a strategic signal” about France and Europe‘s military awakening.
Marking the importance of international cooperation, the parade included 500 troops from the countries involved in the Coalition of the Willing, including Germany, and 25 soldiers from Ukraine.
It was Emmanuel Macron’s tenth – and final – parade ahead of next year’s presidential election. He had a strong guest list this year, with many leaders staying overnight after yesterday’s talks on Ukraine, including Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself.
The parade began at 10am local time (9am BST).
Elsewhere, news emerged from Brussels with Albania, Moldova, Montenegro and Ukraine all making progress in their accession talks with the European Union.
“In the more than two decades, we have not had four accession conferences in one day, and this will happen today,” said a spokesperson.
Montenegro is the frontrunner to join the EU next with more than half of “clusters” closed, but all four countries are making good progress in delivering the reforms requested of them.
During the parade, la Musique de la Marine nationale performed a special medley celebrating the 400th birthday of the French Navy, combined with a complex and impressive choreography and ending with a moving rendition of La Marseillaise – with Macron joining in singing.
French media reported that a 101-year-old French veteran of the Special Air Service, Col Achille Muller, was also involved in today’s parade. He was aboard a helicopter flying over Paris during the commemorations. Earlier this year, he performed a tandem skydive to mark the anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944.
Macron’s most likely successor, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, chose to attend the Bastille Day celebrations in Nice instead. Nice’s parade was also held 10 years after a terrorist ploughed into crowds after a Bastille Day fireworks display there, killing 86 and wounding more than 400. Macron is expected to travel there later today to mark the anniversary.
For all the signs of European unity in Paris, there were also some slight exceptions. Bulgaria’s prime minister Rumen Radev used yesterday’s meeting of the Coalition of the Willing to tell partners that he will be taking Bulgaria out of the group.
“We’re not participating in a coalition that insists on continuing financial and military aid to Ukraine,” Radev told reporters in comments reported by Bloomberg.
But Radev attended the Bastille Day celebrations today.
During the parade, members of the firefighter brigade were also visible. Their presence this year was even more important than usual given the massive wildfires the country has been battling in the last few weeks. The fire in Fontainebleau, a one-time royal hunting preserve about 40 miles (60km) from the French capital, began late on Sunday afternoon. The blaze, unusual in its proximity to Paris, raced across about 800 hectares (2,000 acres) of forest by last night.
The mayor of Fontainebleau, Julien Gondard, said he was shocked and angered. “This exceptional area is consumed by flames, we’ve never seen anything like this,” he told the local TV station ICI Paris Île-de-France.
The June heatwaves that hit Europe would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, the World Weather Attribution group of scientists said. Human-caused climate breakdown is supercharging extreme weather across the world, driving more frequent and more deadly disasters such as heatwaves and wildfires.
The multinational Nato battalion stationed in Estonia, including the French 3rd Marine Artillery Regiment, was also seen. Troops from the Coalition of the Willing marched down Champs-Élysées, with flags of Albania and Australia at the front, along with Austria, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden among others.
A group of Ukrainian troops marched at the end, saluting the leaders and receiving very warm applause. Macron, Zelenskyy and other leaders watched on from the tribune.
Patrouille de France flew over the Champs-Élysées to release colorful vapors forming a French flag. They were flanked by two Mirage 2000 aircraft, piloted by French pilots but accompanied by Ukrainian pilots undergoing training with the French air force. They were followed by aircraft from the French and other allied forces, including an AWACS radar plane.
As Macron climbed the honorary tribune and joined other leaders, there was something symbolic in how he approached his last parade compared to the first one in 2017. Back then, he was keen to impress the freshly inaugurated US president Donald Trump, who was invited as his guest of honour. He even got the French army band to play Daft Punk’s Get Lucky to woo his counterpart.
Ten years on, he oversaw his last parade surrounded by mostly European leaders – Zelenskyy, Merz, Starmer, Frederiksen, Tusk and others – in an attempt to send a clear signal about Europe’s re-emerging power. The Élysée Palace said the parade would be “a powerful symbol of Europe that is becoming aware of how dangerous the world is and that it must take its destiny into its own hands.”
