Bastille Day
The "Fête de la Fédération"on 14 July 1790 was a celebration of the unity of the French nation during the French Revolution. The aim of this celebration, one year after the Storming of the Bastille, was to symbolise peace. The event took place on the Champ de Mars, which was located far outside of Paris at the time. The work needed to transform the Champ de Mars into a suitable location for the celebration was not on schedule to be completed in time. On the day recalled as the Journée des brouettes ("The Day of the Wheelbarrow"), thousands of Parisian citizens gathered together to finish the construction needed for the celebration.
Jacques Goddet
In choosing those words rather than the "liberté, égalité, fraternité" which had been France's motto since the Revolution of 1789, Pétain emphasised that he had ended the republic and created his own replacement, the French State. Goddet was therefore for the end of the French Republic, although not necessarily its replacement by fascism. It was more a traditionalism associated with right-wing movements, a "dream to restore the virtues of hard work, honesty, and respect for one's social superiors" which Pétain thought had existed in rural society. It was nevertheless a period disowned by the French Republic when Charles de Gaulle restored it and for which France took responsibility only in 1995, 50th anniversary of the end of the war, in a speech by President Jacques Chirac marking the round-up of Parisian Jews in the Velodrome d'Hiver.