July 14 is France's National Celebration. They don't call it Independence Day, or even Bastille Day (which is what we were always taught in school), it is just a plain old National Celebration. The Bastille (which was a medieval fortress and prison in the center of Paris) represented royal authority in France back in the late 1700s. On this day, the lower classes essentially got fed up with Louis XVI and his high taxes that were implemented to try and recover from an economic crisis. To show their distaste, they stormed the Bastille and freed the SEVEN prisoners that were in the Bastille. Not exactly opening up Alcatraz, but the event was seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern nation and became an icon of the French Republic during the French Revolution.
There of course is much more to the story, but all you really need to know now is that it is a day when the French get off work (yay for a Wednesday off!...er, if I were working) and close stores at weird hours (the grocery store is open from 9:45-13:30). I'm not sure if there are any foods we are specifically supposed to eat today, but I'll celebrate with a glass of wine, some cheese and a baguette. That should suffice.
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