Senegalese soldiers participate in a military parade in Dakar, Senegal, on April 4, 2025. Senegal celebrated its 65th anniversary of independence on Friday with a grand parade on Mamadou Dia Boulevard in the capital of Dakar, presided over by the West African country's President Bassirou Diomaye Faye. (Photo by Papa Demba Gueye/Xinhua)
DAKAR, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Senegal celebrated its 65th anniversary of independence on Friday with a grand parade on Mamadou Dia Boulevard in the capital of Dakar, presided over by the West African country's President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
Faye was joined by several foreign dignitaries, including Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, Gambian President Adama Barrow, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani, and Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shettima. Members of the Senegalese government and accredited diplomats were also in attendance.
Themed "Toward Technological and Industrial Sovereignty of Defense and Security Forces," this year's parade saw a total of 6,092 participants from military, paramilitary, and civilian sectors march before the officials.
Earlier, Faye delivered a national address on the eve of the celebration, hailing Senegal's democratic maturity and reaffirming his commitment to deeply transforming the country 65 years after independence.
"Now more than ever, we must harness this driving force to correct what needs fixing and to give shape to the aspirations of our people and the hopes of our youth," Faye said, emphasizing his administration's ambition to make an uncompromising assessment of the national economic situation to implement deep structural reforms.
These reforms, he said, include optimizing local finances, ensuring budgetary transparency, rationalizing public spending, and managing debt efficiently to safeguard fiscal sustainability.
"Guided by the ideal of a free, sovereign, just, and prosperous Senegal, successive advances in rights and freedoms have laid the foundation for a thriving democratic model," the president concluded.
In the lead-up to Independence Day, Faye also renamed the parade venue Mamadou Dia Boulevard, in honor of the country's first prime minister.
