Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, July 15, 2002
France Holds National Day Parade
France held its annual National Day military parade along the Champs Elysees boulevard in central Paris on Sunday morning, with Franco-American relations the central theme of this year's commemoration.
France held its annual National Day military parade along the Champs Elysees boulevard in central Paris on Sunday morning, with Franco-American relations the central theme of this year's commemoration.
The parade started with 170 cadets from the US military academyWest Point, which, like its French equivalent Saint-Cyr, celebrates its 200th anniversary this year.
Some 4,000 soldiers, 90 aircraft and more than 300 military vehicles marched in the parade inspected by French President Jacques Chirac and Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.
A fire-engine from the New York Fire Department, a detachment of New York firefighters and relatives of victims of the September11 terrorist attack were among the guests of honor.
Tens of thousands of Parisians and tourists watched the show, which marks the fall of the Bastille prison in Paris at the start of the French revolution in 1789.