Bastille Day Military Parade

Bastille Day Military Parade

The Bastille Day Military Parade (French military parade) taken place the 14 July each year in Paris since 1880. 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 popular event is broadcast on French TV, and is the oldest and largest regular military parade in the world. 


This Bastille day became militarized during the Directory. Under Napoléon, the celebration lost much of its importance, though it came back into fashion during the Third Republic. The Fête de la Fédération became the official national celebration on the 28 June 1880, and a decree of 6 July the same year linked a military parade to it. Between 1880 and 1914 the celebrations were held at the hippodrome of Longchamps, Paris.


Since World War I the parade has been held on the Champs-Élysées, the first occasion being the “Victory parade” led by Marshals Joseph Joffre, Ferdinand Foch and Philippe Pétain on 14 July 1919. This was not a French National Holiday parade, although held upon the same date, but one agreed upon by the Allied delegations to the Versailles Peace Conference. A separate Victory parade of Allied troops was held in London four days later.


On the occasion of the 14 July 1919 parade in Paris, detachments from all of France's World War I allies took part in the parade, together with colonial and North African units from France's overseas Empire. The latter, most notably squadrons of Algerian Spahis mounted on Arab horses and in traditional full dress uniform, continued to participate in the annual parade until the end of the Algerian War in 1962.
In the Second World War, the German troops occupying Paris and Northern France paraded along the same route. A victory parade under General de Gaulle was held upon the restoration in 1945 of Paris to French rule while within the period of occupation by the Germans a company of the commando Kieffer of the Forces Navales Françaises Libres had continued the French National Holiday parade in the streets of London.