Mont-Saint-Michel, West Indies, Palace of Versailles: for more than two months from May 8, 2024, the Olympic flame will cross more than 400 French cities, a journey that is intended to be “festive” despite threats of disruption by activists.
The course, which was unveiled on Friday, is now official.
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.
But not just any boat.
The flame will sail on the Mediterranean aboard the mythical Bélem, one of the oldest three-masters in Europe, to arrive on May 8 in Marseille, the date of the start of its journey which will bring it to Paris on July 26.
– Tour Eiffel ? –
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.
Between these dates, it will therefore cross 64 territories, including five overseas, 400 cities, 65 of which will close each stage, concerts and sporting events at stake.
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, “iconic France in all its dimensions”, estimated the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra.
After arriving in Marseille, it will cross several cities in the south, such as Toulon, Montpellier, Carcassonne, Toulouse, before passing through the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and spinning in Dordogne, then in Charente, and in Vendée.
Arrived in Finistère after going to Mont-Saint-Michel, she will then take another boat from Brest: she will indeed join the West Indies aboard the “Relais des Océans”, the Maxi Banque Populaire XI trimaran skippered by Armel Le Cléac’h, to spend nine days there, before returning to mainland France.
She will then attack France by the east face, starting from the south to arrive in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, and finish in the Paris region, visiting in particular the Château de Versailles, or even that of Chambord.
“It’s been a lot of collective work for a year and a half, the course I find it crazy, I find it incredible”, estimated Tony Estanguet, the boss of the organizing committee (Cojo).
As for the torchbearers, whose selection process is still in progress, they will be 10,000, including 3,000 collectively. Each torchbearer will carry the flame for about four minutes over a distance of 200 meters.
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.
– High security –
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 Olympic Games, and Tibet, many of whose sympathizers had come along the route to denounce China’s attitude.
“It’s true that this moment was significant, especially on securing the flame,” recalls a source close to the Cojo. And this issue of security around the torch relay has recently become a little more significant.
Securing the course 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 reform of the retreats and many scattered calls to disrupt the course.
Forty people from the Saccage 2024 collective also demonstrated a few hundred meters from the Sorbonne to denounce the organization of the Olympic Games in Paris. “This is an opportunity for us to raise in public opinion the idea that the Olympic flame as such is ridiculous and reactionary,” said Frédéric Viale, one of the members of Saccage 2024.
Without wanting to detail the device, the committee assured that the flame would be protected by a “travelling security bubble” which will protect the flame and its carriers.
“We know that some may try something, that Extinction Rebellion activists or I don’t know where will throw things at the flame, try to block the course. We obviously took that into account”, whispers to AFP a source close to the mysteries of the Olympics.
