Fireworks, warplanes and axes: How France celebrates Bastille Day

PARIS (AP) — Swooping warplanes, axe-carrying warriors, a drone light show over the Eiffel Tower and fireworks in nearly every French town — it must be Bastille Day.

France celebrated its biggest holiday Monday with 7,000 people marching, on horseback or riding armored vehicles along the cobblestones of the Champs-Elysees, the most iconic avenue in Paris. And there was also partying and pageantry around the country.

Parisians stormed the Bastille fortress and prison on July 14, 1789, a spark for the French Revolution that overthrew the monarchy. In the ensuing two centuries, France saw Napoleon’s empire rise and fall, more uprisings and two world wars before settling into today’s Fifth Republic, established in 1958.

Bastille Day has become a central moment for modern France, celebrating democratic freedoms and national pride, a mélange of revolutionary spirit and military prowess.

The Paris parade beneath the Arc de Triomphe so impressed visiting U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017 that it inspired him to stage his own parade this year.

The spectacle began on the ground, with French President Emmanuel Macron reviewing the troops and relighting the eternal flame beneath the Arc de Triomphe.

Each parade uniform has a touch of symbolism. The contingent from the French Foreign Legion was eye-catching, its bearded troops wearing leather aprons and carrying axes, a reference to their original role as route clearers for advancing armies.

Near the end of the parade, a Republican Guard officer fell from one of the 200 horses but the national gendarme service said the rider and horse were unhurt. Such incidents happen occasionally at the annual event.

The Paris event included flyovers by fighter jets, trailing red, white and blue smoke. Then the evening sees a drone light show and fireworks at the Eiffel Tower that has gotten more elaborate every year.

Every year, France hosts a special guest for Bastille Day, and this year it’s Indonesia, with President Prabowo Subianto representing the world’s largest Muslim country, which also a major Asian economic and military player.

Indonesian troops, including 200 traditional drummers, marched in Monday’s parade, and Indonesia is expected to confirm new purchases of Rafale fighter jets and other French military equipment during the visit. Prabowo, who was accused of rights abuses under Indonesia's prior dictatorship, will be treated to a special holiday dinner at the Elysée Palace.

“For us as Indonesian people, this is a very important and historic military and diplomatic collaboration,'' the commander of the Indonesian military delegation, Brig. Gen. Ferry Irawan, told The Associated Press.

Finnish troops serving in the U.N. force in Lebanon, and Belgian and Luxembourg troops serving in a NATO force in Romania also paraded through Paris, reflecting the increasingly international nature of the event.

Among those invited to watch will be Fousseynou Samba Cissé, a 39-year old Paris man who rescued two babies from a burning apartment earlier this month and received a last-minute invitation in a phone call from Macron himself.

‘’I wasn't expecting that call,'' he told online media Brut. ‘’I feel pride.''

Beyond the military spectacle in Paris are growing concerns about an uncertain world. On the eve Bastille Day, Macron announced 6.5 billion euros ($7.6 billion) in extra French military spending in the next two years because of new threats ranging from Russia to terrorism and online attacks. The French leader called for intensified efforts to protect Europe and support for Ukraine.

‘’Since 1945, our freedom has never been so threatened, and never so seriously,″ Macron said. ’’We are experiencing a return to the fact of a nuclear threat, and a proliferation of major conflicts.″

Security was exceptionally tight around Paris ahead of and during the parade.

It’s a period when France bestows special awards — including the most prestigious, the Legion of Honor — on notable people. This year's recipients include Gisèle Pelicot, who became a global hero to victims of sexual violence during a four-month trial in which her husband and dozens of men were convicted of sexually assaulting her while she was drugged unconscious.

Others earning the honor are Yvette Levy, a Holocaust survivor and French Resistance fighter, musician Pharrell Williams and designer for Louis Vuitton.

Bastille Day is also a time for family gatherings, firefighters' balls and rural festivals around France.

A horse slides on the pavement during the Bastille Day parade, Monday, July 14, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

French troops march on the Champs-Elysees avenue during the Bastille Day parade, Monday, July 14, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Cadets from the military school Saint Cyr march during the Bastille Day parade, Monday, July 14, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Indonisian army band members march march during the Bastille Day parade, Monday, July 14, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Soldiers of the Foreign Legion march during the Bastille Day parade, Monday, July 14, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Jets from the acrobatic Patrouille de France fly over the Champs-Elysees avenue during the Bastille Day parade, Monday, July 14, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

French and Finland's soldiers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) stand during a rehearsal for the upcoming Bastille Day parade, Wednesday, July 9, 2025 on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to the army leaders flanked by Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, left, and Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu at the Hotel le Brienne, Sunday, July 13, 2025, ahead of the Bastille Day parade in Paris. (Ludovic Marin, Pool Photo via AP)

Foreign Legion soldiers arrive for a rehearsal for the upcoming Bastille Day parade, Wednesday, July 9, 2025 on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Indonesian troops march during a rehearsal for the upcoming Bastille Day parade, Wednesday, July 9, 2025 on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

NEW YORK (AP) — A surging stock market and a flurry of deal making padded the profits of Wall Street's two big investment banks, which both saw a double-digit jump in profits in the fourth quarter.

Goldman Sachs's net earnings rose 12% from a year earlier, posting a profit of $4.62 billion, or $14.01 a share. Meanwhile Morgan Stanley said it earned $4.4 billion, or $2.68 per share, compared to a profit of $3.71 billion, or $2.22 per share, compared to a year earlier.

Wall Street has been bolstered by the Trump administration's deregulatory policies, which has led corporations to seek out mergers and acquisitions, as well as the surge of investor interest in artificial intelligence companies and those who stand to benefit from the mass adoption of technologies like ChatGPT.

Fourth-quarter investment fee revenues over at Goldman were up 25% year-over-year and Morgan Stanley saw a 47% jump in revenue in its investment banking division. Both banks said their investment fee backlog, which is a signal of how much deal making is still pending that banks are working on, increased significantly in the fourth quarter.

Goldman and Morgan's results reflect the strong earnings out of the other big banks that reported their results this week. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup all saw jumps in fourth-quarter profits, but their results were dampened by the ongoing tensions that Wall Street is having with the White House over the issue of the independence of the Federal Reserve and President Donald Trump's interest in capping credit card interest rates at 10%.

Along with a strong investment banking performance, Goldman Sachs also agreed to sell off its Apple Card credit card portfolio to JPMorgan Chase last week, effectively exiting its brief experiment in consumer banking. The bank sold the credit card portfolio at a discount to JPMorgan, a sign of how desperately Goldman wanted to exit the business and put the Apple Card behind it.

This story has been corrected to show that Morgan Stanley's investment banking revenues rose 47%, not 22%.

FILE - Electronic signage is shown at Morgan Stanley headquarters, Thursday, March 4, 2021 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 13, 2016, file photo, the logo for Goldman Sachs appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)