France celebrates Bastille Day with troops, tanks, aircraft, fireworks
The parade in Paris included 7,000 people on horseback and tanks, axe-carrying French Legion troops, 102 warplanes and helicopters.
French President Emmanual Macron reviewed the French Army, Navy and Air Force along the cobblestones of the Champs-Elysses and re-lit the eternal flame beneath the Arc de Triomphe. For the first time, there was included a prison dog, a Belgian Malinois shepherd, Gun, who specializes in weapons and ammunition detection.
At night, fireworks were lit at the Eiffel Tower at an expense of $817,000.
On July 14, 1789, nationals stormed the Bastille fortress and prison, which ignited the French Revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy.
This year's event returned to Champs-Elsees from Avenue Foch because of the Summer Olympics.
Gisele Pelicot, 72, was given France's highest award of Bastille Day celebrations. Pelicot, who has fought against sexual violence, was named a Knight of the Legion of Honor. She was drugged and raped for nearly a decade by her husband, who was sentenced to prison in 2024 along with 50 other defendants.
Also, nearly 600 people were given a civic award, including musician Pharrell Williams.
The guest of honor was Indonesia's President Prabowo Subitanto, who represents the world's biggest Muslim country with more than 240 million, or 87% of the total population. Indonesia had 451 soldiers march in the parade, including a drum band of 189 musicians.
It marked 85 years of diplomatic relations between the two nations.
Also, Finnish troops serving in the United Nations force in Lebanon, as well as those from Belgium and Luxembourg serving in the NATO force in Roman, participated.
Another special guest was Fousseynou Samba Cisse, who rescued six people, including two babies, from a burning apartment on the sixth floor earlier this month.
One day before Bastille Day, Macron announced $7.6 billion in additional military spending over two years amid new threats, including from Russia.
'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.'
President Donald Trump was so impressed with Bastille Day in 2017 that he decided to conduct his own military celebration in Washington, D.C., this year on June 14.
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