90 soldiers from the General Directorate of Armaments (DGA) practice marching in step and rhythm on the former Fréjus aeronautics base before the July 14 parade in Paris.
“LEFT ! LEFT ! LEFT !“, a small group advances in rhythm and step to form one. There are 90 members of the General Directorate of Armaments training to align their steps with each other on the nature base of Fréjus ( Var).
Everything must be perfect before D-Day, July 14, the date on which most of them will parade on Avenue Foch in Paris.
This is the very first time for this detachment of the General Directorate of Armaments.
Learn, step by step
For two weeks, they rehearse on the 616 meters of their course again and again.
It’s a step-by-step learning process, as Madeleine, Weapons Design and Technology Engineer, explains: “We start by trying to walk at the same pace already, putting our left feet forward at the same time. And then, we refine, we add the swords, the handling of the sword statically, while walking.“
Then comes the alignment of the arms and the sheaths, and through repetition the alignment becomes almost perfect.
For members of the General Directorate of Armaments, it is a source of great pride to test and design future army equipment.
There are 90 of them, but not all of them will go to Paris. 6 to 7 of them will be excluded depending on training. “It will be about the small details of aligning the arms, raising the arms to the right height, carrying the head“, explains Arnaud, chief armament engineer.
