France says ‘Merci’ to virus heroes on Bastille day holiday
● Medical workers protest at lack of equipment and staff in hospitals
Medics in white coats replaced uniformed soldiers as the stars of France’s Bastille Day ceremonies as the usual grandiose military parade was recalibrated to honour medics who died fighting Covid-19, supermarket cashiers, postal workers and other heroes of the pandemic.
In eastern Paris, meanwhile, medical workers’ unions marched to decry equipment and staff shortages that plagued public hospitals as the virus raced across France.
Riot police tightly surrounded the largely peaceful demonstrators marching to Bastille plaza, where the French Revolution was born on 14 July 1789.
The contrasting scenes marked a Bastille Day unlike any other, overshadowed by fears of resurgent infections in a country where more than 30,000 people have already lost their lives to the coronavirus.
With tears in their eyes or smiles on their faces, medical workers stood silently as lengthy applause rang out over the Place de la Concorde in central Paris from President Emmanuel Macron, the head of the World Health Organisation and 2,000 other guests.
A military choir sang the Marseillaise national anthem, and troops unfurled an enormous French tricolour flag across the plaza.
The battle against the virus was the main focus of the official Bastille Day event, as Mr Macron sought to highlight France’s successes in combating its worst crisis since the Second World War.
Mirage and Rafale fighter jets painted the sky with bluewhite-and-red smoke, and were joined by helicopters that had transported Covid-19 patients in distress.
The guests included nurses, doctors, supermarket and nursing home workers, mask makers, lab technicians, undertakers and others who kept France going during its strict nationwide lockdown.
Families of medical workers who died with the virus also had a place in the stands.
Medics in jeans or sandals strolled on to the plaza for the climax of the ceremony, and the lengthy military parade was truncated into a smaller affair closed to the public to prevent new virus infections.
Tensions erupted on Monday night on the eve of Bastille Day, as troublemakers set off firecrackers and set a bus, a gym and dozens of vehicles on fire in the Paris region, according to the fire service.
In an interview with French television networks, Mr Macron acknowledged “mistakes” in managing the virus pandemic and in pushing through business-friendly reforms earlier in his term.
He warned of “massive” unemployment and other economic problems still to come after months of virus lockdown, but announced no significant changes in policy for the remaining 22 months of his term.
He announced that masks would be required in indoor public places by August 1 but that schools should resume as usual in September.
France has one of the world’s highest virus death tolls, and scientists are warning of a potential resurgence as people abandon social distancing practices, hold dance parties and head off on summer holidays.
Masks were ubiquitous at the main Bastille Day ceremony. Troops sported them as they got in formation, took them off for the ceremony, then put them on again when it was over.
Tuesday’s annual fireworks display over the Eiffel Tower was largely restricted to television viewers only, with embankments of the Seine and other neighbourhoods where crowds usually gather on Bastille Day closed off.
This year’s Bastille Day commemoration also paid homage to former President Charles de Gaulle, 80 years after the historic appeal he made to opponents of France’s Nazi occupiers that gave birth to the French Resistance.