Bastille Day 2024 (la Fête nationale or le 14 juillet) is the French national day.
There are normally celebrations on Madison Avenue around 60th Street and around Lycée Français de New York in the Upper East Side, at Le District French food hall in Battery Park City, in the new Little Paris (NoHo), and around the International Academy in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
Bastille Day 2024 in New York City
France is probably going to celebrate wildly because of the political surprise in their July 2024 elections. We got tagged by a bunch of excited French in France on social media. We don’t know what triggered them, but they are upset about the French election one way or another.
French Food
French Restaurant Week in New York City is July 1-14, 2024. frenchrestaurantweek.com
FIAF Bastille Celebration
The L’Alliance New York Bastille Celebration 2024 (formerly French Institute Alliance Français or FIAF) French culture street fair is on Madison Avenue, from 59th to 63rd St, in Manhattan’s Upper East Side; on Bastille Day, Sunday, July 14, 2024, from 12noon – 5pm. FREE with food and crafts for purchase. 🇫🇷
SummerStage
The Consulate General of France and SummerStage celebrate Bastille Day with music from the Francosphere: IAM Egyptian-inspired hip hop from Marseille, Magic System Ivorian coupé-décalé, house DJ The Avener, singer-songwriter Laurie Darmon, and urban singer Femi the Scorpion; at Central Park SummerStage; on Sunday, July 14, 2024, from 5:30-10pm. FREE. 🇫🇷 🇪🇬 🇨🇮
L’Alliance New York Bastille Day Celebration is a Street Fair of French Culture
MADISON AVENUE, Upper East Side, Manhattan 🇫🇷
House of Yes is One of New York’s Wildest Night Clubs
HOUSE OF GROOVES Eli Escobar and Ultra Violet, Puerto Rican and Dominican house 🇵🇷 🇩🇴
ROSA PERREO reggaeton house 🇵🇷
OUI OUI BASTILLE DAY Dimitri from Paris, Legitime, Ÿas, French house 🇫🇷
BUSHWICK, Brooklyn
SummerStage 2024 is a Free Summer Performing Arts Festival in New York City Parks
It’s Showtime NYC, Maimouna Keita African Dance Company, Kash Gaines, African Diaspora dance 🇺🇸
Latin Alternative Music Conference (LAMC) Latin music showcase, Fonseca Colombian pop, Israel Fernández Romani Spanish flamenco, Bruses Mexican pop 🇨🇴 🇲🇽 🇪🇸
BRESH inclusive Buenos Aires street party 🇦🇷
SummerStage Bastille Day, IAM, Magic System, The Avener, Laurie Darmon, Femi the Scorpion 🇫🇷 🇪🇬 🇨🇮
ALL FIVE BOROUGHS
Bastille Day
The day commemorates the storming of the Bastille fortress-prison which launched the French Revolution on July 14, 1789.
A financial crisis caused by too many wars destabilized France. King Louis XIV called a meeting of clergy, nobility, and commoners to try and work things out. The commoners created a National Assembly and invited the clergy and nobility to join. When a finance minister who was sympathetic to the commoners was dismissed, the people of Paris feared an armed assault. They stormed the Bastille, a fortress-prison to get ammunition and gunpowder for the people. The French Revolution was on.
The Day is Relevant to Us All
Obviously, Bastille Day is important if you are French. But the French Revolution that it celebrates is relevant to all of us.
At least since the Industrial Revolution increased material wealth (roughly 1760-1840) , human history has been a struggle for power and wealth between ruling elites and the people they govern. Medieval power structures were based on a triad of church, nobility, and common people. You can visualize it as an agricultural estate with the people of the house, their church allies, and the people who work the land.
In Europe, the ideas of the Enlightenment (roughly 1715 – 1789) inspired a change from absolute monarchies and an absolute church, to republics with various forms of representative government and more religious tolerance.
Our American Revolution was one of the first attempts to give common people more control over their own lives and tried to separate religion from matters of state. We are still figuring this out, but the American experiment inspired many who followed, including France and Haiti.
The French Revolution was a popular uprising that overthrew governing elites and unleashed a variety of social forces. It was messy, violent, and led to the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte whose dynasty toppled the Spanish monarchy. That led to the independence movements in Latin America.