This July 14 will be out of the ordinary. The virus has turned everything upside down. After the spring health crisis, the national holiday ceremonies had to be "reinvented" . Due to a lack of time, in particular to prepare it, the parade on the Champs-Élysées was canceled, a first since 1945. It will be replaced by a more reduced military ceremony at Place de la Concorde, without vehicles, with only 37 detachments of 49 people maximum . The meeting will be placed under the slogan of a nation “committed, united and united” . Head of State Emmanuel Macron would like to pay tribute to all those who have fought against the virus.
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In the sky, the aerial parade will also be reduced. But at the end of the one hour ceremony, the Patrouille de France will exceptionally carry out a second overflight of Paris leaving behind an essentially white trail, not tricolor, in honor of the medical world.
Less than 5000 people
The ceremony will bring together less than 5000 people to respect the gauge beyond which gatherings are still prohibited. It will therefore bring together 2,195 participants in the square, half the number last year, in front of an audience of 2,500 spectators. 1,400 people were specially invited to attend the event: "Caregivers, civil servants, associations, members of civil society, and personalities engaged during the crisis," it is said at the Élysée Palace. "There will be a panel of families of caregivers who lost their lives" during the epidemic, says one. “Then there will be a panel of caregivers from all regions and from all healthcare professions. The four regions most affected (Île-de-France, Hauts-de-France, Grand Est, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté) will be more represented, ” we continue.
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"Finally, the last panel will represent the second and third lines," we add. "About thirty professions will be represented: teachers, cashiers, funeral staff, law enforcement, companies engaged in the manufacture of essential equipment, such as masks, etc." , we explain. Four countries will be represented, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg: those who have helped France by welcoming 161 patients on their territory.
But the concern for unity of the Head of State is already put to the test. In the streets of Paris, six unions called last week to demonstrate on Tuesday to denounce the government's "contempt" for health workers. They had not waited for the conclusions of the "Ségur", which granted an increase of 183 euros net per month, to express their anger.
"It was trying"
Place de la Concorde, the tribute to the caregivers and to all those who fought against the coronavirus will however be sincere and the Covid omnipresent. The troops of the Armed Forces Health Service (SSA), called upon during the crisis, will be in the spotlight and will parade among the first around the Obelisk. Among them, there will be Major Caroline, nurse at the 36th medical unit of Montigny-lès-Metz. At 44, she had volunteered to join the field hospital installed in Mulhouse in March. She stayed there for a month, chaining 12-hour days with patients on ventilators. "It was trying," she says, "moved and proud" to represent the SSA. On this morning of rehearsal, Sunday, her rifle stuck to the body recalls that she is also a soldier.
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"SSA is a weapon of peace," she says. Behind her, the students of military schools will parade as usual, Polytechnique in mind. At the end of the procession, the firefighters, the gendarmes, the penitentiary administration, the Customs or the Armed Forces Commissariat will also participate as every year. Between the two will follow units from the land, air and navy armies that have been mobilized for Operation "Resilience". Launched in March, it has provided protection, logistics and health support missions. A handful of sailors from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier will also participate in the ceremony.
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This will be the first July 14 from quartermaster Axel, 21 years old. "The first one is never forgotten ," he said with "pride" . On board, he was infected with the virus, like more than 1000 other sailors. The flagship of the French navy had been forced to interrupt its mission, revealing a vulnerability that still grinds teeth in the armies. Under the eye of the communications officers, the quartermaster repeats being cured, that everything has been checked. "I lost the taste and I had aches for a week," he says, not really traumatized. "I realized the disease by eating a passion fruit that had no flavor," he says.
A little further on, Sara, a 21-year-old mechanic assigned to the aircraft carrier's front catapult, also testified to the epidemic on board. "We all supported each other," she says. She was also confined on board. "My loved ones were worried about me and I were worried about them," she said, recalling that the crisis had shaken all of society.
"Admirably, the nation has united," wrote President Emmanuel Macron in a message before the ceremony. It is in this context that July 14 will also pay tribute to General de Gaulle in the context of "the year of Gaulle", 80 years after the call of June 18. An animation at the start of the ceremony will recall the values embodied by the founder of the Fifth Republic. This passage is the only vestige of the initial program.
