French Letter: fearful France holds its nerve to celebrate Bastille Day
The British have their coronations, royal funerals and the Trooping of the Colour. The French have Le Quatorze Juillet, commemorating the Fall of the Bastille and Day One of the Revolution. Pomp and circumstance, led by the armed forces, are the order of the day and the truth is it’s quite a show.
In recent months, Paris has been like a city under siege. Whatever could go wrong did go wrong. Demonstrations against pension reform, almost all ending in angry clashes with the police, were an almost daily event, More recently, the shooting dead of a teenager of North African heritage by a traffic cop in Paris led to disturbances that quickly spread to towns and cities across the nation. But yesterday, as if to show that there is still redress to be found even in the worst of times, all went swimmingly.
Emmanuel Macron, in his formal role as chef des armées françaises, took the salute from his vantage point on the Place de la Concorde, looking down the Champs Élysées towards the Arc de Triomphe, decorated with an enormous Tricolore.
Accompanied by his wife Brigitte and this year’s guest of honour, the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, the president could at last draw a breath, however briefly. There was talk of protests to follow, even of riots, and of course the night still lay ahead, when anything could happen. But the one morning in the calendar when France comes together to assert its history and its distinctiveness was not to be denied.
In the words of the minister for the armed forces, Sébastien Lecornu, the day showed the world the real France, evoking memories of those who had died and been wounded in its service, the heroes of the Resistance and, not least, the ability of the state to provide military support to the beleaguered people of Ukraine.
When Queen Elizabeth died last year, the state funeral that followed was a demonstration of everything that the British believe to be true of themselves. It worked and France took notice. This year’s Bastille Day celebrations were the best choreographed for years, culminating in front of the Presidential rostrum with a full-blooded, and complete, rendition of the Marseillaise that would not have shamed the Red Army Choir.
What did Narendra Modi make of it? The Indian leader was not there by chance. Just the previous day, he had confirmed that his country is to buy 26 Rafale Marine fighter jets for its rapidly expanding Navy as well as three last-generation submarines from the Brittany-based Naval Group to add to a batch of six ordered back in 2005.
Military-industrial relations between France and India have been growing close in recent years, marked most notably by the purchase by New Delhi in 2015 of 36 Rafale multirole fighters for its air force. At the same time, EDF, the state-owned energy giant, is hoping to finalise a deal to provide India’s expanding energy sector with six state-of-the-art nuclear reactors, while the train maker Alstom is already a leading player with Indian Railways, contracted to supply its sprawling freight division with 800 French-made electric locomotives.
Judging from his demeanour at yesterday’s parade (which included a richly-caparisoned detachment of Indian servicemen and women and a flypast that featured several French-made Indian aircraft), Modi has no problems dealing with the arch-liberal Macron. He may be a hardline Hindu nationalist, accused of using force against Christians as well as Muslims, but, in advance of a state banquet and a private dinner with Macron, he was more than happy this week to be awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit.
The crowds watching yesterday’s big parade are unlikely to have given much thought to the red carpet rolled out for Modi. Rather, they will have been relieved that the procession down the Champs-Élysées went off without a hitch and deeply moved by a rendition of the national anthem delivered in the presence of Henri Becker and Odile de Vasselot de Régné, among the last surviving résistants.
Becker, who struggled to his feet for the Marseillaise, joined the Maquis in Grenoble when he was just 17. He was tortured by the Gestapo in the final week of the Occupation but revealed nothing. Mme De Vasselot de Regné, known by her nom de guerre Jeanne, guided Allied aircrew shot down over France to safety on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, but these days, aged 101, is confined to a wheelchair. Their appearance drew huge applause.
At the time of writing these words, France looked to be calm, though there was no knowing what would transpire as darkness fell. On the night of the 13th, deemed by the interior minister to have been relatively calm, 218 cars were set on fire and 97 protesters were detained. A total of 45,000 police were deployed in the streets. It is difficult not to conclude that the new normal will be with us for some time yet.
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