France’s Bastille Day military parade is underway on the Champs-Élysées, opening with around 500 troops from the “coalition of the willing” countries backing Ukraine’s post-war security — with President Volodymyr Zelensky watching alongside Emmanuel Macron and some 30 other heads of state and government.
A record 6,800 troops are marching this year, up from 5,810 in 2025, with aircraft from 11 European countries — including Germany, the UK, Poland and Sweden — joining the flyover. Twenty-five Ukrainian soldiers are marching, and Ukrainian co-pilots trained in France are flying in two Mirage 2000Bs, one painted in Ukrainian colors.
It is Macron’s tenth and final Bastille Day as president. “We stand ready to fight to defend them,” he said of freedom and the rule of law in his traditional address to the armed forces on Monday, casting the parade as proof of European unity and resolve.
The celebrations are running under a red-alert heatwave, France’s third this year, with a forest fire burning near Fontainebleau south of Paris. Authorities in several regions have banned fireworks and firefighters’ balls. The day also marks 10 years since the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice.
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