MY KOLKATA EDUGRAPH
ADVERTISEMENT
Regular-article-logo Saturday, 30 August 2025

French seduction at Bastille parade Only for Indians, a virtual Carla

Read more below

SANKARSHAN THAKUR Published 14.07.09, 12:00 AM

Paris, July 14: From where we were we only got a slice of the grand Bastille Day parade, and not such a grand slice at all. It had a bit of Nicolas Sarkozy, waving from atop a fleeting open jeep, but alas no Carla, what a sorry slice.

But you folks back home may be more fortunate. Try logging in to champs elysees.in tomorrow and you may have a more fulsome view than we could ever hope for this sunchased Paris morning.

Eric Pena, founder of what he calls the official website of the Champs Elysees, has been sweating up and down the spanking avenue between the imposing Arc de Triomphe, architectural sibling of India Gate, and the ornately laid Place de la Concorde, which really bears no replication, trying to put out today’s parade in a thousand pictures.

“Especially for you Indians,” he says, breaking between bursts from his cannon-like SLR, “this is India’s year at the parade, so especially for you on a new website. Up tomorrow for sure.”

And Carla, Pena promises, would be there too. “We’ll try to make her virtual for you, don’t worry, if not by tomorrow certainly the day after. You just have to type the address and you virtually have Carla.”

For a city that fashions itself as the soul of culture, Paris put out a hard metal pageant today — everything about this parade was military down to the silver-hatted firemen, who, Bastille Day brochures underlined, are considered part of the armed forces.

The Indians led it, of course, once Sarkozy had rolled by in a crescendo of clip-clops conjured under hoof by the caparisoned Republican guards. First the Maratha Light Infantry whose regimental ancestors fought in these parts during the Second World War; then swift contingents of three forces, one, sweetly ironically, led by a turbaned Sikh soldier. But then today those ironical jabs to Sarkozy’s vision of the French way of life must have sat closer the French President in the shape of his guest of honour.

And Sarkozy would, perhaps, have wanted his guest to be watching the proceedings carefully. There was as much good hosting happening on Champs Elysees as hawking --- here’s a taste of what we can offer, Prime Minister Singh, interested? Of course, he is, why else would he have carted his defence secretary Vijay Singh along? Some of what India saw today India already likes, but then, let’s negotiate. We are reliably told talks are on — here in Paris and in New Delhi when a French defence team arrives on July 15.

The French quite rightly invest Bastille Day with a lot of pride and emotion, this is remembrance day for the birthing of modern republics and the rights of man, after all. But the French will themselves tell you how Bastille Day has muted over the centuries from a free-for-all public celebration to a tight leashed military affair.

Napoleon was the first to order alterations in standard Bastille Day operating practices and introduce military showcasing. Successive French republics have amended much of what formerly happened but not Napoleonic Bastille Day tradition.

Today another French leader famously challenged of height appeared to exhort stirring pageantry to the more profitable prospects of commerce.

We had come to set eyes on Carla Bruni — she never turned up for our Republic Day parade in the January of 2008, remember? — but everywhere you looked today Sarkozy was only putting out hardware. Squadron upon squadron of Rafale and souped up Mirage fighters that the French want to sell us sweeping the skies, scattering summer clouds. Tanks and armoured carriers thrilling the ground beneath, rumbling by almost lazily at times, well aware that they were the only seduction allowed to parade the Champs Elysees today. Carla will have to wait, but there’s always Eric Pena’s promise for the virtual one tomorrow.

Follow us on:
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT