Happy Bastille Day! - Bonne Fête Nationale!
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It’s July 14th! France’s Independence Day falls just 10 days (and 13 years) after our own in the U.S., and the holiday incites as much national pride and festivity as does the 4th of July in the States.
Le feu d'artifice
La Fête Nationale
La Fête Nationale, better known to us as Bastille Day, and sometimes simply referred to as le quatorze juillet in France. The July 14th holiday commemorates the storming of the Bastille in 1789, an attempt to take la prise de la Bastille by force, free its political prisoners, and break into the stronghold of weapons.
The great prison break freed all of six or seven prisoners (none of them political) and didn’t quite yield the stockpile of weapons that was hoped for, but the event nonetheless lives on as the symbolic beginning to the long road of the French Revolution away from the monarchy and towards a constitution and the formation of the current governing bodies.
The spirit and foundation of the French Revolution eventually became the motto of France as a whole:
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité!
La Célébration
Paris is home to the largest Bastille Day celebration in the world. The day begins with the military parade — le défilé — down the Champs-Élysées. Members of all branches of France’s military file past as planes from the Air Force fly overhead. Parisians gather to watch the pomp and ceremony, and the parade reminds them of their country’s freedom and power.
Le quatorze juillet is un jour férié (a public holiday) in France. The French spend the day eating and drinking, activities which still represents freedom, equality and brotherhood. Saucisses (sausages), gâteaux (cakes), and vins effervescents (sparkling wines) are favorites on the holiday.
The night celebration is what most Parisians look forward to. They gather on the Champ de Mars, the park in front of the Tour Eiffel to wait for the firework show. The pyrotechnic/musical spectacle of feu d’artifice begins at 11pm and only lasts 30 minutes, but the quantity of explosions is quite impressive. Some years, fireworks are even launched directly off the Eiffel Tower.
All in all, La Fête Nationale is a full-day celebration that commemorates an important date in French history.
Vocabulaire
| La Fête Nationale
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Bastille Day |
| le quatorze juillet
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July 14th |
| la prise de la Bastille
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the Bastille Prison |
| Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
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Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Brotherhood) |
| le défilé
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the parade |
| un jour férié
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a public holiday |
| un saucisse
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a sausage |
| un gâteau
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a cake |
| du vin effervescent
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sparkling wine |
| le Tour Eiffel
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the Eiffel Tower |
| un feu d’artifice
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a firework |
Anne has studied and spoken French for over a decade and has lived in both France and Francophone Cameroon. She strives to write lessons that reflect her real experiences and represent the way people really speak.
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16 Jul, 2010
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physician assistant
10 Aug, 2010
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FrenchNad
18 Aug, 2010
Nice blog! However, you may want to check the spelling and genders in French: it is “la saucisse” and “la tour Eiffel”… I know, confusing right?