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President Emmanuel Macron opened Saturday the 14th of July festivities by going down the Champs-Elysées alongside his Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, before the beginning of the traditional military parade given on this national day. [19659002] Under the sun, the head of state, who opens his second parade since his election in May 2017, began around 10 am the review of troops on the famous Parisian Avenue standing aboard a "command car", before to join the presidential platform on the Place de la Concorde.
The festivities are held under high surveillance: 12,000 members of the police are mobilized in Paris and its region on 14-July and in anticipation of the match on Sunday, where the team hopes to beat Croatia to win a second World Cup.
A nod to Sunday's match, just before joining the ranks, Polytechnique students made a happy group photo with a big b anderole "all behind the France team".
After US President Donald Trump last year, Singaporean Prime Minister Hsien Loong and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono are the honorary guests of the Head of State, while France has undertaken to strengthen its military ties in Asia-Pacific
The flags of the two Asian countries open the parade alongside the French emblem, escorted by seven soldiers of each nationality.
Above the troops, 64 planes will pierce the Paris sky , including the Alphajet of the prestigious Patrouille de France, with three war wounded from the Special Forces on board.
Tenth Frenchman to be in space, Thomas Pesquet will have the privilege of flying over the public at board of a Rafale.
The A330 MRTT Phoenix refueling aircraft will make its first show. The Mirage 2000-N will fly for the last time.
– Promotion Arnaud Beltrame –
Special tribute is given to the units sent to the rescue of local populations after the devastating pbadage, last September, hurricanes Irma and Maria in the French West Indies.
Another tribute, the students of the Ecole des officiers of the National Gendarmerie present in the procession recently christened their promotion by the name of Arnaud Beltrame, the lieutenant-colonel fatally wounded by a jihadist in March, when he had taken the place of a hostage held in a supermarket in Trèbes (south). A heroic act that had moved France.
A total of 4,290 soldiers, 220 vehicles, 250 horses, 64 aircraft and 30 helicopters participate in the 2018 edition of this parade of nearly 2 hours, organized around the theme of the "fraternity of arms".
The traditional procession of July 14 is "a show of controlled force", which goes beyond mere commemoration, said the Chief of Staff, General François Lecointre, confiding his " very great emotion "on this feast day for the armies.
General Lecointre took up his post a year ago, after the departure of his predecessor General Pierre de Villiers, painstakingly reframed by Emmanuel Macron for criticizing budget choice of the new president
A year later, the relationship between Emmanuel Macron and his armies seems to have relaxed.
The head of state on Friday promulgated the Military Planning Act 2019-2025, which provides for nearly 300 billion euros in cumulative defense credits to reach 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) within seven years , in accordance with the repeated requests of the United States to their NATO allies.
This budgetary increase is considered indispensable by the military leaders after years of underfunding of the French armies, exhausted by heavy commitments in the Sahel (operation Barkhane), the Levant (Chammal) and the Hexagon (Sentinel).
"With this military programming law, we will deal with the difficulties of the past, improve the present and prepare the future of our country by giving it the means to defend it," Macron said on Friday night. traditional reception given by the Ministry of the Armies the day before the parade
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