Aurélien Hubert will have the honor of representing customs alongside 39 other comrades on the Champs-Elysées for this parade on July 14, 2022. Assigned to the “management and procedure” pole, this 20-year-old official is the youngest customs officer in the Saint Louis office.
When, after several weeks of intense preparation and selection, Aurélien Hubert learns in June that he is one of the lucky ones, relief and immense joy overwhelm him. “But which were quickly replaced by a little stress because it was a question of proving myself worthy of the choice of the coaches. I will only represent all my colleagues but also my comrades who were not selected”.
To be up to it, the young customs officer from the Bordeaux region followed a intensive preparation and precision over several weeks, overseen by six experienced trainers from the customs school in La Rochelle. “9-hour days, between 20 and 25 kilometers of walking in quick time per day, the music of the parade in the ears [“La Lorraine”, ndlr]. I managed to find a rhythmic step by following the percussion to execute the “left-right left-right” well. By dint of repeating it and training at home, it comes in and it stays.
Clothing of light
His uniform consists of a kepi adorned with a hunting horn and a grenade with seven flamesa blue shirt and a madder band trousers. A radically different uniform than the one he wore as a child, screwed in front of the screen alongside his military parents. “I only watched the parade on TV, in pajamas like the majority of French people. I always told myself that I would parade one day, and that my parents would be proud and jealous at the same time”.
– Ministry of the Armed Forces
Aurélien Hubert and his customs comrades will parade between the prison administration and the foreign legion.