French police motorcycles crash during Bastille Day parade

PARIS – Two French police motorcycles have crashed during a demonstration in front of President Emmanuel Macron and other guests at a grandiose Paris parade celebrating Bastille Day.

The motorcyclists were part of a group tracing patterns on the Place de la Concorde in central Paris as part of a carefully choreographed performance Saturday. After briefly falling down on the cobblestoned plaza, the motorcyclists righted the vehicles, to applause from Macron and the crowd.

Police and gendarme services didn’t immediately have any details on who was involved. It appeared one of the motorcyclists miscalculated the entry onto the plaza.

Later in the ceremony there was an apparent glitch in the colored smoke sprayed by warplanes.

The pomp-filled Bastille Day event included thousands of soldiers and others parading down the Champs-Elysees.