PARIS, July 14: France celebrated Bastille Day on Monday under a cloud of controversy as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad joined dozens of leaders to watch the traditional military parade on the Champs Elysees.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was the guest of honour at the festivities with two units of UN peacekeepers leading off the march from Paris’ Arc de Triomphe down to Place de la Concorde.

But President Nicolas Sarkozy’s invitation to Assad has angered opposition politicians and some in the French military who served in a UN peace force in Lebanon, where Syria for years was the main power broker.

Making a diplomatic comeback after years of ostracism, Assad was among the more than 40 leaders who Sunday inaugurated the new Mediterranean union, Sarkozy’s flagship project to bolster cooperation between Europe, the Middle East and north Africa.

The parade in central Paris was also held amid unease in army ranks over Sarkozy’s plans to slash more than 50,000 defence jobs and shut down dozens of bases.

Sarkozy also raised hackles in the military after he attacked the army top brass over an accidental shooting at an army display late last month, which prompted the resignation of the army chief of staff.

Leading his second national day festivities since taking office, Sarkozy waved to the crowd from an open-top military vehicle before taking his place at the dais, where he was joined by Assad and, standing some distance away, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The president paid tribute to the French army afterwards. “I am very proud of this parade, very proud of the French army. The army put on a remarkable display,” he told France 2 television.

After watching a fly-past of Alphajets that left a trail of red, white and blue, Sarkozy, first lady Carla Bruni and guests watched the parade of some 4,000 marching soldiers and police, 65 aircraft and 241 mounted horsemen.

French actor Kad Merad, star of the record-breaking box-office comedy “Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis”, read from the universal declaration of rights that was adopted in the 1789 French Revolution.

In a first, eight paratroopers rounded out the parade with a jump in red-white-and-blue parachutes adorned with UN flags, landing on Place de la Concorde amid applause.

Assad’s presence angered a group of French veterans who accuse Syria of having been behind a 1983 bomb attack in Beirut that killed 58 French soldiers.

Veterans say Assad did not deserve an invitation to France’s national festival, which celebrates human rights by marking the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 at the start of the revolution.

Sarkozy later awarded the Legion of Honour, France’s highest distinction, to Colombian former hostage Ingrid Betancourt, nearly two weeks after she was rescued from rebel captivity.

At an Elysee palace garden party, Sarkozy presented the insignia to Betancourt, who dedicated it to her “companions in misfortune,” present and past hostages of Colombia’s FARC rebels.—AFP