JULY 14. The famous military parade that commemorates the history of July 14 will not take place this year on the Champs-Elysées because of the Paris Olympic Games. We tell you everything about the ceremony.
It is a must-see on July 14. The grand military parade that usually takes place on the most beautiful avenue in the world in Paris and which traditionally begins the festivities of this national holiday will not take place this year on the Champs-Elysées, but on Avenue Foch because of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. “The ceremony will begin on Place Charles-de-Gaulle, before taking Avenue Foch for a parade that is a third shorter,” explains General Christophe Abad, military governor of Paris. “The separation of the units in front of the presidential stand will take place in a much smaller space than that offered on Place de la Concorde (…) In fact, the 2024 vintage should be characterized by a proximity, an unprecedented intimacy with the public, which will give it a special dimension.”
Although the number of marching participants on foot is reduced to 4,000 and the motorized parade is canceled, the airplane and helicopter parades will still take place as usual. For this edition, a dual theme has been announced: “Olympism and the armies” on the one hand and the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of France on the other. Discover below the schedule of the military parade hour by hour.
- 10 hours : arrival of the President of the Republic Emmanuel Marcon on Avenue de Friedland.
- 10:10 : honors paid to the President of the Republic at the bottom of Avenue Foch.
- 10:16 : initial animation on the theme of the 80th anniversary of the Landings, the Liberation of France and the Victory.
- 10:32 : parade of helicopters and planes.
- 10:36 : parade of the troops in honor, followed by the parade of the troops on foot.
- 11:17 : parade of planes.
- 11:23 : horse parade.
- 11:25 : final animation on the theme “Armies and Olympism”.
- 11:41 : departure of the President of the Republic Emmanuel Marcon.
After July 14, 1880, the military parade became an institution. On July 14, 1919, Marshals Foch, Joffre and Pétain paraded on horseback on the Champs-Elysées – even passing under theTriumphal arch – to celebrate the victory in the First World War acquired a few months earlier. This is when the traditional July 14 parade takes up residence on the most famous avenue in Paris. After an eclipse during the Second World Warthe July 14 parade takes on its current appearance with the multiplication of tanks and planes. However, some presidents of the Republic bring short-lived innovations.
During his term, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing moved the parade to other streets of Paris, such as the Cours de Vincennes, the Ecole Militaire or between Bastille and République in Bastille. In 1982, François Mitterrand postponed the parade until nightfall. The ceremony is perfectly smooth. The parade rehearsals generally take place on July 12 at dawn, two days before the key date. It opens with the passage of planes and helicopters. In all, around 4,000 soldiers parade on the Champs-Elysées at a pace of 120 steps per minute. Students from prestigious schools such as Saint-Cyr appear in full uniform. The march is traditionally closed by units of the Foreign Legion, famous for their voluminous beards and slower pace.
For almost a century, the commemoration of July 14 was abandoned. It reappeared in 1880, under the Third Republic. The regime, in order to consolidate itself, sought to build a new national imagery, around republican symbols. This is how the Marseillaise became the official anthem and July 14 a national holiday. But the proposal, which came from the Seine MP Benjamin Raspail, was not unanimously welcomed by the Assembly. Some MPs questioned the violence of July 14, 1789. And it was finally around July 14, 1790 that the consensus was reached!
That year, the monument topped by the statue on the Place de la République was also inaugurated, and concerts and fireworks were held everywhere. The “July Column” overlooking the Place de la Bastille does not refer to July 14, 1789. It bears the name of the victims of the revolutionary days of July 1830, the “Three Glorious Days.”
July 14, 1789 is on everyone’s mind when we talk about the National Day. That summer, great unrest reigned in Paris. Faced with popular discontent, the king had convened the Estates General, an assembly of representatives of the nobility, the clergy and the Third Estate. The latter demanded a profound reform of the institutions and, on July 9, proclaimed themselves the National Constituent Assembly. The initiative worried the king, who secretly brought Swiss and German regiments near Versailles. Rumor soon spread that the royal troops were preparing to enter Paris to arrest the deputies. On July 12, an orator harangued the crowd, calling on them to react: it was Camille Desmoulins, mounted on a barrel, who announced a “Saint Bartholomew’s Day of the patriots.”
On the morning of July 14, angry Parisians went to the Invalides to get weapons, then headed to the old royal fortress of the Bastille, in search of gunpowder. After a day of bloody gunfights, and thanks to the rallying of national guards, the Parisians seized it and began its demolition. In the end, they freed only a few prisoners and minor criminals. But this old medieval prison embodied the arbitrariness of the Ancien Régime. By tearing it down, the Parisians brought down a bulwark of absolutism. And this day, which marked the beginning of the Revolution, will be remembered as a day of freedom.
But surprise: our national holiday does not directly commemorate July 14, 1789, even if this first revolutionary day has a symbolic significance. July 14 officially refers to another event, less known, although learned by all French students from a young age: the Fête de la Fédération, organized a year later, on July 14, 1790…
After the summer of 1789, regional “federations” of national guards were created throughout the French provinces. A reaction to the weakening of central power. In order to control this spontaneous movement, the Paris Commune, under the leadership of Lafayette, decided to found a large national federation bringing together representatives of local federations and to bring them together in Paris on July 14. The ceremony was supposed to celebrate the capture of the Bastilleone year after this symbolic date, but also to bring a semblance of order and unity to a country in crisis.
On the appointed day, 14,000 federal soldiers arrived in Paris and paraded under the banner of their department, from the Bastille to the Champ-de-Mars. On an esplanade set up for the occasion, a great mass was celebrated, after which King Louis XVI swore to uphold “the Constitution decided by the National Assembly”. The 400,000 Parisians present that day acclaimed their sovereign: the monarchy was therefore not called into question. The aspiration for national unity triumphed and the ceremony was transformed into a great popular festival. But national reconciliation was short-lived. Two years later, the king was arrested and sentenced to death.
A decree of July 6, 1880 established a military parade that we still know today. This event was then intended to erase the memory of the military defeat suffered during the war of 1870the loss of Alsace and part of Lorraine to the German Empire, and to strengthen the Republic, which was not yet ten years old. The first edition of the military parade took place at the Longchamp racecourse, where it remained until 1914. The July 14 parade would then continue and become a must-see for the national holiday.
But the law of 1880 also established July 14 as a public holiday. The idea was to give the French a day off work to take part in the commemorations, but also to listen to their president. From July 14, 1880, at 12:30 p.m., the cannons of Mont-Valérien thundered over the Seine before falling silent for a speech by the President of the Republic, Jules Grévy. Le Petit Journal was ecstatic about a “magnificent spectacle […] that the July sun illuminated with its most radiant light”, evoking “a living symbol of union between these two forces separated for too long, the army and the nation”. The popular newspaper continues: “From the deep, indescribable emotion, which held for twenty minutes, a hundred thousand panting chests, one can affirm that for this crowd which pressed around the massed regiments, the presentation of the flags took on its true meaning: the reconstitution of France, the reconstitution of its national army, finally asserting itself in the face of the country”.
Over the years, July 14 has experienced many twists and turns, but also developments that have transformed it into a general or even global celebration, involving all French people in more festive and popular celebrations. In 1886, a woman, a canteen keeper of the 131st Infantry Regiment, marched for the first time. In 1915, the military parade moved from the Champs-de-Mars to the Champs-Elysées and in 1919, the “victory parade” brought together all the forces of the allied countries on site.
In 1936, the unions joined in the celebrations in their own way. After the military parade, a million people marched at the call of the union organizations. From 1939 to 1945, in occupied Paris, the day was not celebrated. On July 14, 1940, in London, General de Gaulle reiterates his calls for resistance. But in July 1945, the Liberation was celebrated all over France. Every year since, July 14 has been an opportunity to set off fireworks and organize public balls… Throughout France, events are organized on July 14 or the evening before.
The origin of the July 14th balls, and in particular the famous firefighters’ ball, is uncertain. For many, this tradition dates back to the beginning of the 20th century, and is said to have arisen from the frustration of firefighters at not being able to take part in this great celebration. Some were in fact responsible for parading with the military while others had to remain on alert to prevent incidents and fires, which are common, as we know, when fireworks are set off. On an unspecified July 14th, firefighters are said to have invited passers-by to dance at the entrance to their fire station. Each year, this event developed and became established until the firefighters’ associations organized their own ball, on July 13th or 14th. For others, it was the date of July 14th, 1937, which marked the beginning of the firefighters’ balls. In Paris, in Montmartre, a sergeant named Cournet also decided one day to open the doors of his barracks, giving rise to a big party, reports Libération, which investigated this tradition in 2014. This version of the story is notably repeated on the website of the Paris fire brigade.