More Puritan than Parisian

Except, of course, in Boston.

Being in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 14th of July is like being in Boston, England. In both places, the holiday is virtually ignored; the only difference is that in this Boston you are 3,000 more miles away from France.

Bastille Day is to the French what the Fourth of July is to Americans. Which means, like Americans, the French spend the day eating too much, drinking too much, and making fun of the English.

They used to make fun of Americans, especially George W. Bush. But now we have Obama, and they love Obama, so now they make fun of their own president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is a French conservative, which means he thinks the bus drivers should go on strike only nine times a year.

Now, given that there are some 10,000 native French in the metropolitan Boston area, you would think Bastille Day would be a big deal here. And given that so many of those who sparked the French Revolution by storming the Bastille in Paris in 1789 were inspired by American revolutionaries, including many Bostonians, you would think it would be even a bigger deal.

In New York, they shut down a whole street on the Upper East Side. The French quarters in San Francisco and New Orleans go bananas on “la quatorze juillet.’’ In Philadelphia, they re-enact the storming of the Bastille and have an actress dressed as Marie Antoinette pelt the Parisian militia with pastries. In Milwaukee - Milwaukee! - they have a four-day festival.

And, in Boston? Here, on Tuesday night, they had a loud party at the Liberty Hotel that was mostly full of . . . Americans. The Bastille was a jail and the Liberty Hotel used to be a jail. And Liberty is the first of the three pillars of the French Republic: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. So all the symbolism was nice. But, at the end of the day, it was a party in a ritzy hotel, with a DJ and balloons and $11 glasses of wine.

Don’t blame the French. They have tried to create a Bastille Day tradition befitting Boston’s history in inspiring the French Revolution and its modern status as a home for a sizeable expatriate community. The French Library used to host a block party on Marlborough Street in the Back Bay, which drew the French and Francophiles in droves, and was more in keeping with traditional Bastille Day celebrations. But the Back Bay bluebloods didn’t like it.

Too loud. Too much hassle. Trash. Parking. And, seriously, how are you supposed to walk your dog when the sidewalks are cluttered with French people? Somehow, Bastille Day became the bête noire of the Back Bay. So they had to get rid of it last year.

Alexis Berthier, a diplomat at the French Consulate, said the French are the first to admit that Bastille Day is oddly subdued in Boston. “It’s not from our lack of trying,’’ he said. “We thought the block party on Marlborough Street was a very authentic event. But the neighborhood didn’t like it. We have tried to create other events, but it is very difficult because it is quite regulated here. It’s a paradox, because Americans think Europe is overregulated.’’

Of course, there is only one way around uptight residents and onerous regulations, and that is politicians. And so there is only one solution to restoring Bastille Day to its proper place in historical and cultural significance in this town: make it a Suffolk County holiday.

The pols will be racing down Beacon Hill, black berets on heads, flute glasses in hands, singing for all they’re worth, “Vive le fête!’’

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.