(Before we start just a reminder that the French don't call it Bastille day but "le quatorze juillet" or, less often, "la fête nationale". If you say "Jour de la Bastille" while in France, you will get some strange looks!)
Since Camille and I just returned from a week in Paris, I wanted to share some of my observations with you. Now of course, if you want to experience Bastille day in Paris, then, that will obviously be the best time for you to go. For all others, avoid that time of year if you can...
Every year, le quatorze juillet starts with the very traditional "Défilé" (the military parade) in the morning. The défilé showcases not only 1000s of military, police, firemen and supporting personnel but also horses, tanks, helicopters, fighter jets and more. The parade starts at the top of the Champs-Elysées and ends in front of the president's tribune on the Place de la Concorde, so to accommodate the millions of people who come to watch the parade, most of the lower Champs-Élysées are outfitted with stadium style seating and the rest have crowd control barriers. In order to prepare for that, worker crews start the installation many days before and it takes them more than a week to remove them completely.
(Note the pictures in this post were taken on the 17th, 3 days after!)
In the evening, the city of Paris puts together a massive free concert (this year* it was Johnny Hallyday, France's biggest musical star for the last 45 years, and Christophe Maé, a newer star). The concert takes place on the Champ de Mars right near at the feet of the Eiffel tower and this year, more than 900,000 people showed up!
Then finally the day ends with the fireworks which are usually fired near the Tour Eiffel and even more people show up for that (look for my next post on Paris' Bastille Day fireworks secret spot, avoiding having to sit out for the whole afternoon).
As you can imagine, Paris is transformed to be able to accept the millions of people who descend on the Champs-Elysées, the Champ de Mars and anywhere in the city where there is a clear view of the Eiffel Tower. On top of that, some Métro stations are also closed on that day and combined with the amount of people travelling into the city, taking the Métro can become quite an ordeal.
If your goal is to see all these famous places in their 'natural' state, then try to avoid Paris for those 2 weeks!
--Olivier
The video below is from the 2007 Défilé
* (article written in 2009)
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I'm Camille's husband and I handle all the marketing, technical & design aspects of the site as well as cameo on some of the French Audiobooks recordings. I was a product manager/designer in the high tech media field for a long time and I'm now freelancing in the internet & media space. I now live in Bretagne.
