FRANCE:President Nicolas Sarkozy dedicated his inaugural Bastille Day to Europe and the recognition of "anonymous victims and heroes", writes Lara Marlowein Paris.
For more than 12 hours, from the moment Mr Sarkozy led the military parade down the Champs Élysées, standing in the back of a command car, until the fireworks at nightfall, the French president was rarely out of range of microphones and television cameras.
It was by Mr Sarkozy's own description an emotional day. France's new leader recounted watching Gen de Gaulle drive down the same avenue on Bastille Day some 40 years ago.
On Saturday, he was "overwhelmed" by "little Guillaume", a handicapped boy who said his fondest dream had been to watch the parade on the Champs Élysées. "If all unfortunate people could have such simple dreams . . ." the president sighed.
Mr Sarkozy is the first leader to have brought troops from all 27 EU member states together. "I'd been thinking about it for years," he told France 2 television. "I wanted to show that Europe is back in France; that France is back in Europe. I want a Europe that protects, a Europe that is led differently." The heads of the European commission, parliament and rotating Portuguese presidency were on hand to watch the V-shaped formation advance down the Champs-Élysées. The Bulgarians stood out, in scarlet coats with silver braid. Spanish legionnaires, who call themselves "fiances of death," marched with open shirts, the Estonians in long black coats.
A child from the "Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de bois" boys choir recited from Robert Schuman's declaration of May 9th, 1950: "Europe will not happen all at once, nor as an overall project. It will be made through concrete realisations that create solidarity on the ground." The words resounded across the Place de la Concorde.
Mr Sarkozy has said that European defence will be a lever to relaunch "political Europe". But French defence policy is in flux as a White Paper and a new five-year plan are drawn up.
At the defence ministry's garden party on Friday night, Mr Sarkozy said the French military must be "not the army of our habits but the army of our needs".
Nowhere were the Sarkozian themes of heroes and victims, winners and losers, so evident as in the family of Rachida Dati, Mr Sarkozy's protege and the French justice minister.
In a sign of support, he turned up at Ms Dati's garden party, also on Friday night. Ms Dati was going through a bad patch: four of her top advisers resigned last week, and on Friday it was revealed that two of her brothers have been convicted of drug trafficking, just as Ms Dati is pushing through a law to toughen sentences for repeat offenders.
"I think about Rachida and not Jamal," Ms Dati's ageing father Mbarek told me at the Élysée on Saturday. Jamal Dati was convicted of selling heroin in 2001.
Last February he was convicted of dealing in cannabis. The prosecutor said his six-month suspended prison sentence was too lenient, so he'll be back in court in Nancy tomorrow. Jamal Dati "is a criminal like any other" the justice ministry said.
By inviting 2,000 "victims and heroes" to his garden party, Mr Sarkozy said he wanted to say "that this pain and this suffering are taken into account by the entire nation". Among guests were Sophie Vouzelaud (20), the runner-up in this year's Miss France contest, statuesque in a red chiffon dress. "The president invited me because I represent the handicapped," she told me through a sign language interpreter. Ms Vouzelaud is deaf.
David Dechambre (37) was blind at birth and lost the use of both legs through a botched operation. Yet he founded a data-processing company and learned to pilot aircraft, assisted by an instructor. "We're heroes as well as victims," Mr Dechambre mused. "President Sarkozy says able-bodied people should look at what the handicapped achieve, and stop complaining."
Wheelchairs and white canes wended their way among ladies in fancy hats and high-heeled shoes, through long queues for ice cream. The president's teenage son by his first marriage tossed his blond surfer mane as he chatted with friends on the presidential lawn. "I want the Élysée to be the house of the French people," Mr Sarkozy said.
Perhaps. But the garden party was a segregated affair, with the Sarkozys' friends and relatives mostly drinking champagne inside the air-conditioned palace, while "plebians" were confined to the garden.
"I had to get out of there," said an official who escaped the "elite" party. "Everyone was practically on their knees, licking his shoes."
"I have reconciled France with La Fête Populaire," Mr Sarkozy announced as "La Fête de la Fraternité" - a free concert attended by 600,000 people - got under way beneath the Eiffel Tower. "I want France to get its energy and hope back," he continued.
"I want France to live, to grab life with both hands, for people to want to give of themselves, create, innovate, and hope in the future."