‘USA 250’ Lights Up the Eiffel Tower as Paris Marks American Independence

PARIS —The Eiffel Tower carried a “USA 250” message in red, white, and blue on the evening of July 3, drawing crowds to the Place du Trocadéro to mark the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence.

Shortly before 11 p.m., as dusk finally settled over the capital, the monument kept its familiar golden glow while the tricolor message lit up across its frame. A ripple of applause moved across the esplanade, where hundreds of onlookers, French families, foreign tourists, and a scattering of Americans abroad raised their phones to capture the moment.

The illumination marked the start of a summer of festivities organized by the City of Paris to honor the bond between the two nations. Two and a half centuries after France backed the fledgling republic’s fight for independence, the celebrations place sport at the center of the program and fall exactly midway between the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris and the 2028 edition in Los Angeles.

For many in the crowd, the display carried a meaning beyond the spectacle.

“I am delighted that our city of Paris is standing alongside Americans as they celebrate their 250th anniversary,” Joséphine, a French literature student at the Sorbonne, told The Epoch Times. “In these uncertain times, when the direction of our world feels far from clear, it is reassuring to reach back into the brightest chapters of history.”

Antoine, a mechanical engineer who had traveled to Paris for the weekend with his girlfriend, saw the tribute as a nod to a shared attachment to liberty. “It’s a fine thing that our country gets to celebrate the birth of a nation whose people hold a deep attachment to liberty,” he said, adding that he hoped France would “keep alive the ideals of Lafayette.”

Jean-Paul, a retiree who had come with part of his family, hoped the anniversary would endure. “I hope the new generations, and those who come after them, will be able to keep celebrating this important anniversary, for it carries a real symbolic weight,” he told The Epoch Times.

The Marquis de Lafayette, the French officer who fought alongside Washington during the Revolutionary War, remains a central figure in the transatlantic story that Parisian officials invoked ahead of the celebrations.

“The history of our two countries has been linked for at least 250 years, since France contributed to the independence of the United States,” said Audrey Pulvar, the Paris deputy mayor in charge of international relations, speaking to The Epoch Times at a celebration of Franco-American friendship held on the Place des États-Unis in Paris.

She described the ties between the two peoples as strong and long-standing, noting that Paris and Washington do not always take the same political direction, “but that does not stop us from coming together at important moments like this one.” Over two and a half centuries, she said, the two countries have defended common convictions, “fundamental freedoms, equal rights, democracy,” which she said “are never won for good.”

Jérémy Redler, mayor of the capital’s 16th arrondissement, where the U.S. embassy separately mounted two exhibitions for the occasion, struck a similar note.

“France is proud of its bond with the United States,” he told The Epoch Times. “It was born of a shared conviction, that peoples can choose their own destiny, and that liberty is never an inherited possession.” He recalled that the two nations had fought side by side against totalitarianism in the last century and stood together against Islamist terrorism in this one, in New York in 2001 and in Paris in 2015.

Francisco Paco Perez, spokesman for the U.S. embassy in France, described the anniversary as a joint history.

“This anniversary matters because the story of American independence is also, in a way, a French story,” he told The Epoch Times. “Without France, the United States would not be the country it is today.” He said the United States had in turn stood with France during both world wars, “contributing to defend and then liberate this country in one of the most difficult moments of its history.”

The tower’s illumination was the first in a series of events stretching through the summer.

On July 4, a free flag football initiation, a discipline set to make its Olympic debut in Los Angeles in 2028, is scheduled along the Rives de Seine, while the mayor of Paris and the U.S. ambassador planned a walkabout through the capital. Open-air photography exhibitions devoted to American beaches and cities are due to run into late August, and the NBA is to hold the first French edition of its Summer House event at the end of July.