Bastille Day : Paris Summit Opens Amid Celebrations

On a day when leaders of seven industrialized nations formally opened their economic summit here, mounted Republican Guards in silver helmets pranced down the Champs Elysees below jet fighters trailing the national colors today in a show of precision, pomp and might honoring Bastille Day and the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution.

More than 250 planes and helicopters streaked overhead in the daytime military display, to be followed hours later on the flag-bedecked avenue by a nocturnal fantasy of elephants, dancing bears and marching bands.

Martial Music

Columns of more than 5,000 men and women, from frogmen to Foreign Legionnaires, 300 armored vehicles, unarmed mobile missiles and sophisticated transmission equipment paraded to martial music this morning.

The Interior Ministry said up to 1 million people lined the city’s most celebrated avenue for the spectacle.

President Francois Mitterrand reviewed the troops at the Place de l’Etoile and then, standing in a light reconnaissance vehicle, rode down the avenue to the Place de la Concorde. There he joined President Bush and other world leaders in the presidential tribune, at the site where the guillotine stood during the revolution.

Later, the ceremonial start of the summit, the 15th such meeting, was held in the spectacular but controversial Louvre Pyramid, the new, giant glass structure designed by American architect I. M. Pei that serves as an entrance to the national museum of France.

First Summit for Bush

Bush, attending his first summit, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Japan’s Prime Minister Sosuke Uno were among those welcomed by Mitterrand.

At a later working dinner at the Hotel de la Marine, White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu said, “The focus will probably be on the political issues” that are expected to be a major topic during the talks that conclude Sunday.