At 10:25 on the morning of 14 July, the Patrouille de France swept over the Arc de Triomphe and unrolled three ribbons of blue, white and red down the length of the Champs-Élysées. Behind them came a river of jets. And for the first time in the long history of France’s national day, two of those aircraft carried Ukrainian pilots.

This year’s flypast was built around a single idea, printed at the top of the official programme: l’éveil stratégique de l’Europe — the strategic awakening of Europe. President Emmanuel Macron hosted around thirty leaders on the reviewing stand, and put allied troops and aircraft front and centre in a deliberate message to both Moscow and Washington: Europe intends to defend itself.

Nearly 130 machines over Paris

The official 2026 programme listed 98 fixed-wing aircraft — eight of them from foreign air forces — followed by 32 helicopters, for a total approaching 130 machines. It is one of the largest regular displays of air power anywhere in the world, packed into a few minutes over one avenue.

The French Navy took a starring role. To mark the 400th anniversary of the Marine Nationale, a naval-aviation tableau of 13 Rafale M fighters and an E-2C Hawkeye early-warning aircraft thundered past, part of a wider showing of more than forty Rafales in total. The Patrouille de France, the Armée de l’air et de l’espace’s aerobatic team since 1953, led the whole procession with its trademark tricolore smoke.

Ukrainian pilots, French jets

The most talked-about aircraft were two Mirage 2000B — the two-seat training version of Dassault’s delta-winged fighter. These are French jets, flown from the front seat by French Air and Space Force instructors, with Ukrainian student pilots in the rear cockpit. One of the pair wore a special livery in Ukrainian colours.

The symbolism was carefully chosen. France has been training Ukrainian pilots and has supplied Ukraine with Mirage 2000-5F fighters during the war; putting Ukrainian aviators over the Champs-Élysées on the national day turned that support into a picture the whole world could see. It is the first time Ukrainian pilots have taken part in the flypast.

What the 14th of July actually celebrates

For all the fighter jets, Bastille Day is not really a military holiday. The 14th of July marks the storming of the Bastille fortress in 1789 — the spark of the French Revolution — and the Fête de la Fédération that followed a year later. France has observed it as its national day, the Fête nationale, since 1880.

The parade down the Champs-Élysées grew into the centrepiece of the day: one of the oldest and largest regular military parades in Europe, watched by the president, foreign guests and a vast crowd along the avenue. The opening flypast, with the Patrouille de France painting the sky in the colours of the flag, has become its most photographed moment. This year the rehearsals alone drew crowds; the video below captures the French forces practising the display in the days beforehand.

Whatever one makes of the geopolitics stitched into this year’s theme, the spectacle over Paris was as stirring as ever — and a reminder of why the French do the 14th of July like no one else. From all of us at Afterburner, joyeux 14 Juillet to our French readers. Happy Fête nationale.

Sources: Associated Press; France 24; Euronews; Defense News; AeroTime; official Bastille Day programme.