Bastille Day was celebrated for the first time on Vancouver’s Granville Island yesterday. The area was festively decked out in blue, white and red and the people got into the spirit in some stripes and berets, with accordion music playing in the background.
There were activities with something for everyone from a Classic car parade, to the dog contest where the challenge was to “Frenchifiy” your pet with a blue, white and red costume, and my favourite, the Waiter’s race!
Bastille Day is what the celebration is known as in English-speaking countries, but in France, this national holiday is known as ‘le quatorze juillet’ or ‘la fete nationale’.
It commemorates the storming of the Bastille by 8,000 starving, poor and oppressed people in 1789, which ignited the French Revolution, the end of the monarchy and beginning of the modern republic.
Vancouver has a strong community that lives in Canada’s other official language with 25,000 people who have French as their mother tongue and six French schools.
This was the first time that all the French associations and the Consulate of France teamed up to organize the Bastille Day celebration. The occasion brought a taste of France with cheeses and sweets, and it all wrapped up in the traditional Bal des Pompiers, or Firemen’s Ball last night.
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