PARIS: Syrian President Bashar Assad was a guest of honor at France’s annual Bastille Day military parade yesterday, sparking a small protest and adding to tensions at the march over job cuts in the armed forces.
Bashar, marking a rehabilitation with the West, joined a host of leaders in central Paris for the annual military review, which followed the launch of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Mediterranean Union project on Sunday.
But his presence angered some army veterans, who suspect Syria played a role in a 1983 massacre of French troops in Lebanon, and was also denounced by human rights groups.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said eight of its activists were arrested near the parade when they protested against Bashar, who was in the front row of the reviewing stand.
At the start of the ceremony, an actor read the preamble to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the assembled leaders — a move that Sarkozy later said was a “excellent response” to the controversy surrounding Bashar.
“One shouldn’t read this text among ourselves. We should read it to those who need to learn it. It was a beautiful image without provocation or weakness,” he told reporters.
There had been speculation that marching soldiers too could protest because of Bashar, and also an overhaul of defense strategy in which around a quarter of military personnel are due to be cut, but the parade went off as planned. “The armed forces put on a remarkable display,” Sarkozy told France 2 television shortly after the parade, which began with jets roaring overhead and ended with a group parachute jump.
The president paid tribute to the French Army. “I am very proud of this parade, very proud of the French Army. The army put on a remarkable display,” he told the television. After watching a fly-past of Alphajets that left a trail of red, white and blue, Sarkozy, first lady Carla Bruni and guests watched the parade of some 4,000 marching soldiers and police, 65 aircraft and 241 mounted horsemen.
Sarkozy’s office said 35 foreign national leaders attended yesterday’s parade, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The defense community is also reeling from the resignation of the army’s chief of staff two weeks ago after an incident in which live bullets were fired instead of blanks during a combat display, injuring 17 people in the southern town of Carcassonne.
Sarkozy expressed his support for the nation’s armed forces in a traditional message ahead of the Bastille Day parade. “Like you, and like all French people, I was profoundly hurt and shocked by the Carcassonne tragedy. Such an event does not affect the confidence I have in our armed forces,” Sarkozy said.
Several media reported that armed forces chief of staff Gen. Bruno Cuche quit because of a verbal attack in which Sarkozy called him “incompetent,” but Cuche said in a statement his decision was due solely to the Carcassonne incident.
