FRANCE is facing a political crisis following the recent elections, which failed to give a clear majority to any party. The current Prime Minister Gabriel Attal tendered his resignation after President Macron’s camp lost more than a third of its MPs but he has been asked to remain in power in a caretaker capacity to see out the period of the 2024 Paris Olympics, commencing on July 26. Two other immediate events fall before that, the first session of the lower house of the French Parliament will be held on July 18 while the French national day falls on July 14 (today).
Formally called the Fête nationale française is the anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille, a major event of the French Revolution 1789 —which has become the French national day—celebrated on 14 July each year. The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, when revolutionary insurgents stormed and seized control of the medieval armoury, fortress and political prison known as the Bastille, which then represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. Its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution.
The upheaval in France came about due to numerous factors. During the reign of Louis XVI, France faced a major economic crisis, which was caused partly by the cost of intervening in the American Revolution and aggravated by massive taxes, exacerbated by poor harvests in the late 1780s. The winter of 1788–89, one of the bitterest in history, led to the famine in the summer of 1789. The tribulation was heightened by unimaginative financial policies imposed by Louis XVI’s contentious Finance Minister Jacques Necker, who believed that lavish spending would secure loans by presenting the monarchy as wealthy, adding to the monarchy’s financial woes.
Mass uprisings by the impoverished populace led to radical political and societal change in France. The thought process of the French Revolution, many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, while the values and institutions it created remain central to French political discourse. Liberty, equality and fraternity (Liberté, égalité, fraternité) , the popular slogans during the revolution, became the national motto of France.
The turmoil in France, dominated by political strife, economic depression and civil disorder, prompted the neighbours of France, Austria, Britain, Germany to restore the Ancien Régime by force. Many French politicians saw war as the best way to unite the nation and preserve the revolution, resulting in the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in April 1792, abolition of the French monarchy and proclamation of the French First Republic in September 1792, followed by the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793. His queen, Marie Antoinette, allegedly when told that the peasants had no bread, replied: “Then let them eat brioches (cakes).” Her mass unpopularity led her to the guillotine on October 16, 1793.
In the aftermath of the storming of the Bastille, the constitution was suspended and effective political power passed to the more radical Committee of Public Safety. An estimated 16,000 “counter-revolutionaries” were executed during the subsequent Reign of Terror, which ended with the so-called Thermidorian Reaction, and the inauguration of the French Directory on 2 November 1795.
Facing external threats as well as internal opposition from royalists and popular unrest, a new, less democratic, constitution—a five-man Directory was established in November 1795. Despite a series of military victories—many won by Napoleon Bonaparte—political divisions and economic stagnation resulted in the Directory being replaced by the Consulate in November 1799, marking the end of the Revolutionary period.
The political turmoil ascended another leader to the top—Napoleon Bonaparte—who became the de facto leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814 and again in 1815. Napoleon’s political and cultural legacy endures to this day, as a highly celebrated and controversial leader. He initiated many liberal reforms that have persisted in society, and is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history. His campaigns are still studied at armed forces academies worldwide. Between three and six million civilians and soldiers died in what became known as the Napoleonic Wars.
In 1880, the government revived 14 July as Bastille Day and as well as the Fête de la Fédération. Celebrations are held throughout France and even in former French colonies. The Bastille Day military parade has been held in the morning, each year in Paris since 1880. While previously held elsewhere within or near the capital city, since 1918 it has been held on the Champs-Élysées, with the participation of the Allies as represented in the Versailles Peace Conference, and with the exception of the period of German occupation from 1940 to 1944 (when the ceremony took place in London under the command of General Charles de Gaulle); and 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced its cancellation.
The parade passes down the Champs-Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde, where the President of the French Republic, his government and foreign ambassadors to France stand. At the same time, above the Champs-Élysées, the fly-past and an impressive aerobatics display comprising aircraft and helicopters from the French Air Force, Naval Air Force and the National Gendarmerie, the Interior Ministry’s Civil Security Air Service continues. The parade ends with a parachute display by selected parachutists from the French Armed Forces. This is a popular event in France, broadcast on French TV, and is the oldest and largest regular military parade in Europe. In some years, invited detachments of foreign troops take part in the parade and foreign statesmen attend as guests. Spectacular fireworks light up the Parisian sky in the evening of Bastille Day.
Incidentally, my wife’s birthday is also the 14th of July. When I was posted as Naval and Air Attaché to Riyadh, she and I would be invited to the French National Day reception hosted by the French Embassy. I would jokingly thank the French Ambassador for celebrating my wife’s birthday in such a grand manner.
—The writer, Retired Group Captain of PAF, is author of several books on China.
