I am open to correction for this, but I am pretty sure that Bastille Day is foremost the public holiday in France. The French National Day is the anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, which was a central event of the French Revolution.
For obvious reasons, it wasn’t celebrated during World War II, at least not until 1944. The photograph above shows a crowd gathering to celebrate Bastille Day in Cherbourg. Following are just some impressions of Bastille Day, 14 July 1944. The first time the day was celebrated again since the start of the war.
Singing The Marseillaise, Frenchmen crowd the square before the Municipal Theater in Cherbourg Bastille Day, 14 July 1944. Formerly called Petain Square, an official ceremony was held on the national holiday to rename the square after General de Gaulle.
A French Commando, who had landed with British troops of the Allied Expeditionary Force on D-Day in Normandy carries the flag of liberated France on his bayonet at Bastille Day ceremonies in Bayeux 14 July 1944.
Frenchmen raised the American, British and French Flags over the City Hall in Valognes to mark the 155th anniversary of French independence on Bastille Day on 14 July 1944. It marks the first observation of the holiday in four years. The above photograph was of a grammar school building, which the Germans had used as a naval hospital during the occupation.
Altar boys lead the funeral procession through Barfleur on Bastille Day, 14 July 1944, for Abbe Jules Gaslonde, a French priest killed by a mine left by the Nazis in their retreat before Allied forces. Note the Allied officers saluting at the lower right. A former vicar, Abbe Gaslonde, was from a village near St. Lo. The Nazis transferred him when he defied Nazi orders by hanging the Tricolor in his church. The Abbe was put to death when he returned on his bicycle from administering last rites to three French civilians fatally wounded by another Nazi mine.
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History of Sorts 
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