2023-06-23 12:14:38
The Olympic flame will cross France for 80 days over nearly 12,000 kilometers from May 8, 2024, and will pass through Mont-Saint-Michel, the Antilles or the Château de Versailles, the organizers of the Olympic Games announced on Friday June 23. Paris Olympics.
Published on: 06/23/2023 – 12:14
The course is now official. Carried by 10,000 torchbearers, the Olympic flame, lit on April 16 in Greece, will arrive by boat on May 8 in Marseille before crossing more than 400 cities, and five overseas territories, to arrive in Paris on July 26. Mont-Saint-Michel, West Indies, Palace of Versailles: for more than two months, the Olympic flame will make a journey that is intended to be ” festive despite threats of disruption by activists.
The lit torch at Olympia
If all local authorities have not responded to the call, partly for some because of the cost deemed excessive, the Olympic flame will still cross 64 territories for more than two months. After being lit on April 16 in Olympia, the torch will carry out a nine-day relay in Greece before taking the boat to reach France. The flame will sail on the Mediterranean aboard the mythical Bélem, one of the oldest three-masters in Europe, to arrive in Marseille.
The location of the lighting of the cauldron in Paris has still not officially been decided, the hypothesis of the Eiffel Tower, which has been mentioned several times, has not been confirmed by the boss of the Cojo, Tony Estanguet. The course will not be linear, with chip jumps to connect the partner territories. Obviously, like the route of the Tour de France, the flame, treated with the respect worthy of a Head of State, will be accompanied by a caravan, made up of sponsors. And as for the Tour de France, it will pass through emblematic places in the country.
One third of the flame bearers will be selected by the organizing committee and the sports movement, another third by the sponsors of the torch relay BPCE (bank and insurance) and Coca-Cola, another third by the other partners of the Olympic Games and the last 10% by the territories hosting the flame.
Last visit to France in 2008
The Olympic flame has not passed through France since 2008 in Paris, a day in April that turned into a fiasco. The passage of the torch in the capital had indeed been enamelled with numerous incidents, against a backdrop of tension between Beijing, organizer of the Olympics and Tibet, many of whose sympathizers had come along the route to denounce China’s attitude.
Securing the route is ensured by the State services which have taken ” very seriously “, According to a source close to the Cojo, the threats weighing on the crossing of the flame, in particular because of the social climate born of the pension reform and numerous and scattered calls to disrupt the course. Without wanting to detail the device, the committee assured that the flame would be protected by a “ mobile safety bubble which will protect the flame and its carriers.
(With AFP)
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