France marked its national holiday on Tuesday with the country's largest-ever Bastille Day military parade in Paris, but celebrations were muted across much of the country as authorities cancelled firework displays and traditional balls due to the high risk of wildfires amid a severe heatwave. Fires burning in the Fontainebleau forest (a historic royal hunting ground roughly 60km south-east of Paris) scorched around 2,050 hectares and forced approximately 1,000 residents to evacuate, with six people arrested on suspicion of arson. The parade, attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and around two dozen allied leaders, also carried a strong geopolitical message, with soldiers from Ukraine and NATO partner nations marching alongside French troops for the first time in decades as a show of Western unity in support of Kyiv.