HRH Crown Prince Moulay Rachid returns to Bastille Day parade

Paris, July 14 2008 –  France marked its National Day on Monday in Champs Elysées in Paris in the presence of His Royal Highness Crown Prince Moulay Rachid.

In 1999, Crown Prince Moulay Rachid and his dearly loved father King Hassan II were guests of honor with the presence of 500 Moroccan Royal Guard officers at the head of the big parade. It was just the second time non-French troops have been invited to march in the City of Light's.

This year, many leaders from Europe, Africa and the Middle East, who were already in Paris for the establishment of the Union of the Mediterranean, attended the traditional military parade.

Unlike the previous years, the air parade includes military planes from over seven European states like Belgium, Germany, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Hungary. The initiative is another testimony that European member states cooperate in peace keeping missions.

As part of France's Bastille Day celebrations today, Crown Prince Moulay Rachid also attended the traditional garden party at the French High Commissioner's residence.

Bastille Day commemorates the storming of the hated Bastille Prison in Paris in 1789. The event is the country's great symbol of the fall of the aristocracy led by King Louis XVI and the rise of a furious citizenry. The French Revolution would develop as a populist groundswell still both admired and lamented as a horrific bloodbath in the name of self-rule.