This year again, the July 14 parade will open with a column of soldiers from elsewhere: around 500 soldiers from the “coalition of the willing”, preceded by 25 Ukrainian soldiers, will open the parade on the Champs-Élysées. Thirty-five countries from this coalition, as well as delegations from NATO and the European Union, will be represented, an arrangement that the Élysée presents as the symbol of the “strategic awakening of Europe”. This spectacular staging is far from being new, it dates back more than a century.
In 1919, these soldiers from elsewhere marched for the first time during the victory parade. Allied units march alongside the French, between Porte Maillot and Place de la République. Belgians, British, Americans, Greeks, Italians, Poles, Serbs and Czechoslovaks took part, in alphabetical order of their nationality, with the French troops bringing up the rear. Twenty years later, in 1939, British soldiers marched again, a way for Paris and London to show their rapprochement in the face of the German threat.
After the Second World War, the exercise became rarer. It was not until 1994 that a foreign presence was established permanently, with the participation of German soldiers within the Eurocorps, a multinational unit bringing together French and Germans, invited by François Mitterrand to mark a gesture of reconciliation.
Five years later, in 1999, an entirely Moroccan contingent opened the parade, on the occasion of the “year of Morocco in France” and in the presence of King Hassan II: this time it was the first autonomous foreign detachment, that is to say marching alone, under its own flag since the British troops of 1939.
The turning point of the 2000s
The real shift took place in 2007, when Nicolas Sarkozy, just elected, invited a detachment from the 26 countries of the European Union to celebrate the fifty years of the Treaty of Rome. Eight hundred and thirty-eight European soldiers parade that day. The following year, UN peacekeepers led the way, in the presence of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
This 2008 edition is also marked by a controversy: the presence of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, invited for the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean. A demonstration is held on the sidewalks of the Champs-Élysées, some deeming its presence incompatible with the values put forward that day.
Since then, France has chosen one or more “guests of honor” each year, depending on the country’s diplomatic, economic or strategic agenda. In 2009, India inaugurated this modern practice: Paris and New Delhi have been linked for twenty-five years by a strategic partnership which is particularly notable in the arms sector.
The visit of Indian leader Manmohan Singh is strategic, potentially leading to the purchase of new Rafales and submarines. France invites India again in 2023, in the presence of Narendra Modi this time: beyond the military aspect, for Emmanuel Macron it is a question of consolidating a link with a rising demographic and economic power.
A practice that is exported
In 2018, Japan and Singapore open the parade together. The Élysée then wishes to mark 160 years of diplomatic relations with Tokyo, described as an “exceptional partnership”. Singapore, for its part, is distinguished as one of France’s oldest partners: Singaporean fighter pilots have been training for twenty years at the Cazaux air base, in Gironde, where the largest Singaporean community in Europe lives.
Some editions even give ideas to other nations. In 2017, Donald Trump attended the parade as guest of honor for the centennial of the United States’ entry into World War I. He came back so marked that he organized, the following year, a military parade in Washington on the French model.
Proof, if any were needed, that these invitations have become a diplomatic language in their own right. A way for France to designate, every July 14, its current strategic priorities.
