Red, White and Blue of a Different Kind

I ended up seeing the Bastille Day ceremonies in Menton. The French take their Bastille Day seriously: I ended up seeing part of the military parade in Paris on TV, where there was a representative troop unit from every part of the French armed forces.

One of the most impressive units at the parade was the French Foreign Legion. France is unique in letting foreign nationals serve in a special unit in its army. In return for serving France and her interests, the foreigners get to become French nationals after three years, with a new identity of their own choosing. In essence, you join the Foreign Legion, pick a fake name, and if you serve for three years or your blood is spilled on the battlefield, you become a French national. Of course, this attracts a certain kind of personality, specifically, the kind that has committed atrocities in multiple countries and has run out of options. Interestingly, Wikipedia says that the Legion had a reputation for allowing felons into its ranks in the past, but the admission criteria are much tighter now. Well, I'm sure that that line was added to Wikipedia by a French PR flak. In fact, if there had been a Wikipedia during the Franco-Prussian War, presumably written on pieces of loose paper and disseminated on horseback, it would still have said the same thing back then.

The French first responders followed the Legion, staged a car accident in the middle of the parade and cut apart a car with the jaws of life. I guess they need to show the public that they know how to respond to calls for help. I'd like to see the port dude in Menton do the same. Interestingly, it was a very slow operation, and at some point, it looked like the jaws of life they brought along was not going to be sufficient for the larger car they had for the mock rescue.

And finally, there was a group of tough guys from French Polynesia who got into formation and started hitting themselves in the chest. Apparently, they were doing some kind of tribal dance where the objective, presumably, is to indicate to your opponent that you're so strong that you can go into battle where you beat yourself up first, fight your opponent and still win -- it's kind of like pre-drinking before a night of partying.

Even in the tiny town of Menton, the celebrations were quite elaborate.

"Down with the King!"

WWII outfit alongside Bastille-stormers!
That guy can single-handedly mow everyone down with a machine gun.

Large contingency of allies

Jeeps and muskets. It looks just like upstate NY before the start of the regular deer season.

Vive La France! Mort aux oiseaux de mer!

There was, of course, a large fireworks show at night. They're not very big on safety precautions in Europe, so I got to see the fireworks barge up close. Very close.

Every single piece of fireworks gets its own mortar tube

It turns out that photographing fireworks is very very difficult, even with a tripod.