Bastille Day fireworks light up Eiffel Tower skies for France celebrations | FULL

France celebrated Bastille Day on Friday with fireworks after a grand parade for the national holiday in Paris.

This year, the celebrations marking the start of the French Revolution on July 14, 1789, come in the wake of the nation’s most serious rioting in nearly 20 years, following the fatal police shooting of a teenager with North African roots that laid bare anger over entrenched inequality and racial discrimination.

Fighter jets and military helicopters whooshed Friday right above the site where 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk was killed last month, in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, on their way toward the Arc de Triomphe and the VIP guests watching the parade. The streets were unusually quiet as local residents gathered at Nanterre’s Nelson Mandela Square to watch the flyby.

India was the guest of honour at this year’s Bastille Day parade, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi watching alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. About 240 Indian troops led the march down the Champs-Elysees before thousands of French forces, and French-made Indian warplanes joined the aerial display.

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