fête de bastille à Paris - Bastille Day festivities

Just thought of sharing a few thoughts on what is perhaps the biggest nationwide holiday in france - fête national otherwise known as 14 juillet, when the french stormed and liberated bastille. for the french, this is THE holiday, the reason to be proud of france, to be french - en gros, the quintessential of the french identity. my professed ignorance of french history prompted me to do a little research on the holiday with the hope that it would make me feel just a little more french, that i could better understand the pride or whatever the millions of people who 'stormed' the center of paris felt yesterday. Yes, they still storm the center of paris, possibly not so differently as they stormed Bastille on the 14 of july 18 1789, but more on this later. my ignorance-prompted research revealed that the storm was indeed french style - too much fuss for too little outcome - the attack on Bastille apparently released 7...yes, not 70, 700 or 7000 prisoners.

are there are any parallels to be drawn between 1789 and 2007? well, allow me to contest that from my humble foreigner point of view, there are. first, on the storming aspect. imagine a city with over 2 million inhabitants and almost as much in tourists who flock to see fireworks in a city where all the roads are suddenly blocked by police which, by the way, does not much differ from the deployment of the UN troops in Lebanon - these are not some wimsy police cars we are talking about here, but serious ammunition, capable of dispersing crowds with water, breaking doors, etc. in fact, it is not only the police that is deployed but the army as well. perhaps they got bored after the parade and wanted to stay in town some more before they get shipped off to the aforementioned lebanon or an african state where france still tries to assert its non-colonial power. all in all, arriving for these fireworks which astonishingly started on time this year, requires some serious storming indeed.

so, one would think that storming the trocadero or another area from which these magnificent fireworks could be seen is where all the parallels would end. personally, I am not so convinced. although i cannot opine to know the details of this important national holiday, the 'retreating' part was not any easier than the 'storming' part. without further adieu - retreating is on foot. that is, no bus, practically no metro, and of course no cars. I don't know about you, but what is exactly the difference between middle ages and now? they retreated on foot or horses, we retreat on foot, which seeing as how i live across the river and basically across paris, is no walk in the park. so the tradition continues as it all begun, the french are making too much fuss for too little outcome. would i have known that i would have to have a claustrophobia attack and a 2 hour treck ahead of me, i would have hesitated whether it's all worth for 7 prisoners. but then, i am not french. even after the fête de la bastille. quel dommage.