France: July 14 military parade

Paris welcomed a special guest for France's national holiday on Sunday: the Olympic flame, which lit up the city's grandiose military parade for Bastille Day.

Just 12 days before the French capital hosts the exceptionally ambitious and highly secure Summer Games, the torch relay joined thousands of soldiers, sailors, rescue workers and medics parading through Paris to the roar of fighter jets.

President Emmanuel Macron kicked off Sunday's events with a review of the troops.

Military bands and choirs played a prominent role, performing a medley of French military songs, American jazz tunes, a Scottish bagpipe ballad - and the Marseillaise.

Around 130,000 police officers are deployed across France for this holiday weekend.

The parade ended with the arrival of the flame, escorted by riders, 25 torchbearers and cadets dressed in the five Olympic colours forming the shapes of the five Olympic rings interlocked with each other.

The first torchbearer, Colonel Thibault Vallette, gold medallist in equestrian sports at the 2016 Rio Olympics, passed the flame to a group of young athletes who passed it from hand to hand in front of the presidential stand.

The parade usually starts from the Arc de Triomphe, which dates from the Napoleonic era, to the Place de la Concorde, where the last king and queen of France were beheaded.

This year, the Concorde was transformed into a huge Olympic venue for breakdancing, skateboarding and BMX.

The parade then headed towards the Bois de Boulogne park, on the outskirts of the city.

Construction of the Olympic site around the Eiffel Tower means spectators are also unable to gather beneath the monument to watch its annual fireworks display.

After Bastille Day, the torch relay will pass by Notre Dame Cathedral, the historic Sorbonne University and the Louvre Museum before heading to other iconic Paris locations on Monday.

This year, the Bastille Day celebrations provided Mr Macron with a distraction from the political turmoil he unleashed with snap elections that weakened his centrist pro-business party and his presidency.

The result left parliament deadlocked with no one clearly in charge.

The prime minister could step down in the coming days, while the left-wing alliance that won the most seats is struggling to agree on a replacement proposal.