Bastille Day 2010 – July 14 French Celebration

Happy Bastille Day 2010. France Bastille Day is celebrated as a national holiday in France to mark the storming of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789. The revolution was the first step to establishing a republican government.

History of the Bastille Day Celebration

On 30 June 1878, a feast had been set in Paris by official decision to honour the Republic (the event was immortalised by a painting by Claude Monet). On the 14 July 1879, another feast took place, with a semi-official aspect; the events of the day included a military review in Longchamp, a reception in the Chambre of Deputies, organised and presided by Léon Gambetta, and a Republican Feast in the pré Catelan with Louis Blanc and Victor Hugo. All through France, as Le Figaro wrote on the 16, “people feasted a lot to honour the Bastille”.

On the 21 May 1880, Benjamin Raspail presented a law proposal to have “the Republic choose the 14 July as a yearly national holiday”. The Assembly voted the text on 21 May and 8 June. The Senate approved on 27 and 29 June, favouring 14 July against 4 August (honouring the end of the feudal system on 4 August 1789). The law was made official on 6 July 1880, and the Ministry of the Interior recommended to the prefects that the day should be “celebrated with all the brilliance that the local ressources allow”. Indeed, the celebrations of the new holiday in 1880 were particularly magnificent.

Today, July 14 plaster your walls with French travel posters, serve up great food, learn at least a few French travel phrases, sing a few verses of the French national anthem.