This year’s Bastille Day celebration in Paris will be like no other of recent times: Instead of a massive display of troops and military hardware, a parade of about 2,000 participants will march to honor health care workers, passing by a socially-distanced crowd.
The celebration, which marks a key event in the French Revolution, when masses tore down a prison housing political prisoners, will end as usual at the Place de la Concorde, also a key point of the Revolution; it is the spot where King Louis XVI was executed in 1793.
While the parade usually draws crowds in the hundreds of thousands, France’s emergence from lockdown is unlikely to permit gatherings larger than 5000 in time for the parade.
