Remarks given on 4 July 2025, by:
Timothy Povich, Commander, Benjamin Franklin Post 605, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW)
Bryan Schell, Commander, Paris Post 1, American Legion
Monsieur le maire,
Mes distingués collègues,
Mesdames et Messieurs,
Members of the American Community in Paris,
Every year, on this day, the fourth of July, we celebrate American Independence. In America, we typically celebrate with barbeques, parades and fireworks. But this year is special, this year marks the 250th anniversary of the start of the Revolution and it is appropriate for us to remember our beginnings. The Battles of Lexington and Concord, the siege of Boston, the Battle of Bunker Hill, all laid the foundation for the War for Independence, beginning in April 1775 with the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere – who, by the way, was the son of a French immigrant to Massachusetts.
Tension had been building between the Americans of the Thirteen Colonies and their British overlords for a decade, driven by the British1Parliament’s 1765 Stamp Act. It imposed tariffs on imports and taxes on the colonists to cover the cost of British troops stationed in America. The rallying cry of the colonists at the time became ‘No taxation without representation!’
The following year the Sons of Liberty formed a group to lead the colonies in protest, and sent Benjamin Franklin to London to explain why the taxes were a bad idea. The British repealed one tax, but continued adding other tariffs, and opposition in the colonies grew. In 1770, an anti-tariff demonstration in Boston ended with five colonists shot to death by British regular troops, an event known to history as the Boston Massacre.
The British occupied Boston and declared martial law in the colonies. In response, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in June 1775 created the Continental Army, and named General George Washington as commander. His army counted some 15,000 men, most of them workers or farmers, 20 percent of them of indigenous or African background, 25 percent of them Scots or Irish.
Washington was not eager to command an army, but felt it was his duty. He wrote: "I can answer but for three things, a firm belief of the justice of our Cause—close attention in the prosecution of it—and the strictest Integrety […].”
In those early days, the Continental Army was equipped with little more than determination. But France had been watching, and one particularly talented individual set up a company in May 1775 to funnel supplies secretly to the Americans. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, a playwright, artist, inventor and musician, worked with the French court to get a million livres’ worth of cannons, muskets, gunpowder, tents and clothing to the insurgents. It would be the first of several shipments that represented 90 percent of the Continental Army’s supplies in the first year of the war.
It was a volunteer army that elected its officers, lacked discipline and in the winter months, most of its soldiers went home. There were multiple mutinies and desertions. Keeping morale high was critical to the army’s success, and Thomas Paine knew how to do that better than anyone. His Common Sense pamphlet had brought people into the war, and The American Crisis kept them there. Right now, we are handing out scrolls to help all of you remember Thomas Paine’s fateful words [ Hand out the scrolls]. He stated:
"These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
Through hard experience over time, the Continental Army learned to fight together as a united force. In 1777, the decisive American victory at the Battle of Saratoga brought the French court to begin negotiations on the Treaties of Friendship, Alliance and Commerce, the first foreign recognition of the United States-to-be. When the news of the treaty reached Valley Forge, Washington ordered a "Feu de Joie” of cannonfire salutes and the men toasted the king of France.
In 1780, the king sent General Rochambeau and 6,000 French troops across the ocean. Rochambeau was 56 years old, an experienced commander. When Washington fixated on liberating New York from the British occupation, Rochambeau persuaded him that the cost would be too high. Better to take the troops south and coordinate with Admiral de Grasse’s naval fleet. It all came together in Virginia, in the fall of 1781, with a siege of the British troops at Yorktown, while the French fleet blocked British ships in Chesapeake Bay. It ended on October 19th after just 21 days.
We begin celebrating this 250th anniversary now, in 2025, and will continue to mark the momentous events along the way to the 1783 signing of the peace treaty in Paris.
Without France, there would be no United States, and without the United States, there would be no France. We are inseparable partners in liberty, the oldest of democratic republics, brothers in arms, sisters in the rule of law. Red-white-and-blue or bleu-blanc-rouge, today we celebrate the fact that after 250 years, our flags are still there.
Merci beaucoup pour votre attention aujourd’hui.
Vive les États-Unis d’Amérique
Vive la France
Vive l'amitié franco-américaine
Special thanks to Union Nationale des Combattants / section d'Issy-les-Moulineaux for your participation and support.
