The Bastille Day Military Parade (or 14 July Military Parade, translation of the French name of Défilé militaire du 14 Juillet) is a French military parade that has been held on the morning of 14 July each year in Paris since 1880, almost without exception.
The parade passes down the Champs-Elysées from l’Arc de Triomphe to Place de la Concorde where the President of the French Republic, his government and foreign ambassadors to France stand. This is a popular event in France, broadcast on French TV, and is the oldest regular military parade in the world. In some years, invited detachments of foreign troops take part in the parade and foreign statesmen attend as guests.
Smaller military parades are held in French garrison towns (like Toulon or Belfort) with local troops.
Read more about Bastille Day Military Parade: Organization and Parade Summary, History, Composition of The Parade
Famous quotes containing the words day, military and/or parade:
“He that shall see this day and live old age
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors
And say, “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.””
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valour, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“We are becoming like cats, slyly parasitic, enjoying an indifferent domesticity. Nice and snug in “the social” our historic passions have withdrawn into the glow of an artificial cosiness, and our half-closed eyes now seek little other than the peaceful parade of television pictures.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)