AP News, July 14th, 2007
Troops from all 27 European Union nations marched in France's Bastille Day parade for the first time Saturday, part of a revamped celebration enacted by new President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"It's a party. It's Europe's party," Sarkozy said of the holiday, his first as president. "It was a parade of armies but it is peace that we want to celebrate."
Sarkozy, who has pushed for a united European military, stood in the back of a military vehicle to lead the procession. It circled the Arc de Triomphe before continuing down the Champs-Elysees escorted by mounted regiments of the Republic Guards.
He got out of the vehicle briefly to talk with spectators _ an unplanned move that took guards by surprise.
On the eve of the Bastille celebrations, Sarkozy reiterated his push for a Europe-wide defense system.
"The basis for a European defense exists. We must make it grow," he said in a speech to European defense ministers and French military officers. "I want Europe to be capable of ensuring its security autonomously."
The popular Sarkozy, who took over from Jacques Chirac in May, also broke with several other Bastille Day traditions. He ditched the president's July 14 televised interview, and the former interior minister with a law-and-order reputation refused to issue mass pardons usually granted on the holiday.
The pardons were seen as a way to relieve prison overcrowding _ and were heavy with symbolism as the holiday marks the July 14, 1789, storming of the Bastille prison in Paris by angry crowds that helped spark the French Revolution.
