Swords Drawn: Bastille Day Parade

The Bastille Day parade of troops down the Champs-Elysée to salute the president was marred yesterday by tensions between Nicolas Sarkozy and France's military. Morale has plummeted and relations between the Elysée Palace and the armed forces are at their worst since the end of the Algerian war in 1962.

"Their heart isn't in it," various newspapers reported, while the leftwing daily Libération called the parade a "demonstration without banners". Sarkozy has fallen out with the army, despite the increase in French troops to Afghanistan and France's presence on the international peacekeeping stage.

Sarkozy made a last-minute speech to the armed forces, intending to calm the atmosphere and assure troops of all his "esteem and friendship". But one officer yesterday told Le Parisien that morale was "at four on a scale of one to 10, where seven would be worrying".

The tensions stem in part from Sarkozy's plan to radically overhaul the army, which includes cutting 54,000 defence personnel jobs over the next six to seven years. A list of the garrisons to be closed should have been unveiled earlier this month. But as tensions and protests grew it was postponed until the end of the month.

So great has been the concern that the army is being squeezed due to other French budget worries that several major figures penned an anonymous newspaper column decrying the cuts and the "amateurism" of the defence reforms. Sarkozy reportedly called on the intelligence services to root out those behind the column.

In June tensions were inflamed when a soldier fired real bullets instead of blanks at an army open day in Carcassonne, injuring 17 people in the crowd. Sarkozy told the army "you're amateurs, not professionals". The army's chief of staff resigned over the incident.