ISTANBUL

France on Monday celebrated its Bastille Day national holiday with an annual military parade in Paris.

France marked its biggest national holiday with a military parade including 7,000 troops marching or riding on horseback and in armored vehicles along Paris’ famed Champs-Elysees with the official inauguration of President Emmanuel Macron, according to state-owned outlet France24.

Fighter jets also flew overhead, trailing smoke in red, white, and blue, the colors of the French flag.

Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia's president, also joined the ceremony as part of a French tradition of inviting a "country of honor" as a special guest every year.

Indonesia paraded 451 soldiers down the Champs-Elysees, including a drum band of 189 musicians, broadcaster BFM TV reported.

Finnish troops serving in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) – a nation France administered after World War I – were also part of the parade.

Bastille Day marks the day in 1789 when Parisians stormed the infamous Bastille Prison, sparking the French Revolution, which overthrew the monarchy.