This year, exceptionally, the military parade was held on Avenue Foch. 4,000 soldiers marched and ceremonies highlighted the 80th anniversary of the Liberation and the Olympic Games held in Paris.
However, its organizers found a way to keep the emblematic Arc de Triomphe in the background by moving the parade to a neighboring street.
The parade started from Place Charles de Gaulle-Étoile as usual but, instead of heading towards Place de la Concorde, went down Avenue Foch towards Porte Dauphine. The parade was thus “one third shorter” than its usual route.
“You have to go back to 1979 to find a parade outside the Champs-Élysées”, at the time, the President of the Republic Valéry Giscard d’Estaing had in fact moved the procession to commemorate the French Revolution. It then took place very symbolically between the Place de la République and the Place de la Bastille.
Since then, the parade has always taken place on the Champs-Élysées, with one exception: the year 2020, marked by Covid-19. Due to the pandemic, the parade was cancelled and replaced by a ceremony on the Place de la Concorde.
The theme of “Olympism and the armies” was chosen for this somewhat special day, as was that of the 80th anniversary of the Liberation. This year, 4,000 soldiers are mobilized for the event, compared to nearly 6,500 for the 2023 edition, also part 37 planes, 162 horses of the Republican Guard and 22 helicopters.
The parade was opened by the passage of 22 helicopters of all types from the Air and Space Force and the French Navy. The 4,000 mobilized soldiers then went down Avenue Foch, starting with the troops inheriting the units of Free France such as the Chad Marching Regiment, the maritime force of the marine riflemen of the Kieffer commando, the Amyot d’Inville marine rifle battalion, or the “Lorraine” fighter squadron.
After the passage of military aircraft (fighter planes, reconnaissance and surveillance planes), the Olympic flame was escorted from the Arc de Triomphe to the official stand, carried on horseback by Colonel Thibault Vallette, a Cadre Noir from Saumur and gold medalist in the team eventing competition at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016.
The Patrouille de France then performed a beautiful and rare figure in the Parisian sky while the Marseillaise had just sounded once again to close the ceremony.
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