French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday showcased European military cooperation in a Bastille Day parade, with key EU leaders joining in Paris to watch the annual parade.

Some 4,300 members of the armed forces marched down the famed avenue in a tradition that dates back to just after World War I.

Standing in an open-top command car alongside France's chief of staff General Francois Lecointre, Macron inspected the troops. 

A futuristic highlight of the parade came when French inventor and entrepreneur Franky Zapata showed off his flyboard, soaring above the Champs Elysees and the assembled leaders.

"The army is transforming: it is modernizing for our soldiers, our sovereignty and our independence," Macron told France 2 television. 

The celebrations were followed by clashes that erupted between anti-government protesters and police that recalled violence seen at the peak of the "yellow vest" protest movement earlier this year. 

Protesters tore down security barriers, set fire to rubbish bins and portable toilets, and chanted anti-government slogans like "Macron resign!" before calm was restored.

Police fired tear gas to clear protesters from the iconic Champs-Elysees.

The Paris police said 180 people had been detained over the violence, and 25 held for questioning were later released with 13 still in custody late in the day.

Key EU leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, joined Macron in the parade that included representatives of nine other European armies in a show of unity.  

Closer European defense cooperation has been one of Macron's key foreign policy aims and the president shows no sign of wavering despite growing political turbulence in Germany and Britain's looming exit from the European Union.

At the 2017 parade, Macron's guest of honor was the newly inaugurated President Donald Trump as the young French leader sought to form a bond with his U.S. counterpart.

Two years ago Macron tried bonding with Trump at the Bastille Day parade. But since then ties between Trump and Macron have soured over the U.S. pullouts from the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal, as well as France's new law for a tax on digital giants, most of them U.S. companies.

Macron, who pushed the idea of the European Intervention Initiative (EI2) to undertake missions outside of existing structures like NATO, insisted on the importance of European defense cooperation.

"Never, since the end of World War II has Europe been so important," Macron, who after coming to power in 2017 controversially dispensed with the president's traditional July 14 television interview, said in a written statement. 

Merkel told reporters after the event that the parade was a "great gesture for a European defense policy" and Germany was "honored" to have taken part.

In a sign of France's ambition to be a leading modern military power under Macron, the president Saturday announced the creation of a national space force command that will eventually be part of the air force.

Among the foreign airpower taking part in flybys were two British Chinook helicopters, a symbol of British-French defense cooperation even as Brexit looms.

Ahead of the parade on Saturday, Macron also announced that he has approved the creation of a space command within the country's air force in order to beef up its space defense policy and better protect its strategic interests. 

"To ensure the development and reinforcement of our space capabilities, a space command will be created next September in the air force," Macron told reporters. 

"This will eventually become the space and air force, and the necessary new investments will be decided," he added. 

France has a 2019-2025 military spending plan that allocates 3.6 billion euros (4 billion U.S. dollars) to defense in space, local media reported. 

Macron noted that "the cyber space or the exoatmospheric space" had become "new areas of confrontation" that have triggered the need to create "a new military space doctrine" with which France would "ensure the defense of space." 

(Cover: France's President Emmanuel Macron gestures next to French Armies Chief Staff General Francois Lecointre as they review troops before the start of the Bastille Day military parade down the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris, July 14, 2019. /VCG Photo)

(With input from Reuters and Xinhua)