Ambulance drivers, supermarket cashiers, postal workers. Medics who died fighting COVID-19. France is honoring them all on its biggest national holiday Tuesday, recalibrating Bastille Day’s usual grandiose military parade to celebrate heroes of the coronavirus pandemic instead, reports the Associated Press.
This years’ commemoration is also paying homage to former President Charles de Gaulle, 80 years after the historic appeal he made to opponents of France’s Nazi occupiers that gave birth to the French Resistance.
But the battle against the virus, which has claimed more than 30,000 lives in France, is the main focus of the official event in central Paris, as President Emmanuel Macron seeks to highlight France’s successes in combating its worst crisis since World War II.
“This ceremony will be the symbol of the commitment of an entire nation,” Macron said in a speech to military officials Monday. “It will also be the symbol of our resilience.”