Earlier than a crowd thronging the waterfront and hilltops of this historical port metropolis of Marseille, the Olympic flame arrived in France on Wednesday, starting a 79-day relay throughout the nation and its territories that can culminate in Paris with the beginning of the Olympic Video games on July 26.
In an elaborate ceremony attended by President Emmanuel Macron and a crowd estimated at greater than 150,000 individuals, all eyes have been on the Belem, a historic three-masted ship that bore the flame, and was greeted by greater than 1,000 boats in a forest of masts filling Marseille’s harbor.
The Belem, which spent a lot of the day cruising simply past town’s previous port, left Greece on April 27, carrying the flame lit in Historical Olympia 11 days earlier than that.
“We wanted a robust image, a robust image that in some way confirmed the radiant face of France,” Tony Estanguet, the top of the Paris Olympic Committee, advised France 2 tv of town, which was based some 2,600 years in the past. “Marseille is a metropolis of sport, ardour and festivities.”
Florent Manaudou, France’s Olympic males’s 50 meters freestyle swimming champion in 2012, ushered the flame ashore at round 7:30 p.m. A department of the French Air Pressure, often called the “Acrobatic Patrol,” traced the 5 Olympic rings within the sky. Mr. Macron shouldn’t be anticipated to make a speech, opting to shun politics in favor of a celebration that can embrace a free rap live performance on a floating stage.
France has been the goal of repeated Islamist terrorist assaults over the previous decade, and safety was tight on Wednesday, with entry to the port space managed by greater than 6,000 regulation enforcement officers. Gérald Darmanin, the inside minister and a potential presidential candidate, referred to as the extent of safety “unprecedented.”
Lucas Poujade, 23, a enterprise scholar from the Auvergne area of central France, was on trip close to Marseille and determined to come back witness the festivities.
“That is as soon as in a lifetime,” he mentioned. “I feel individuals from Marseille are proud and blissful that the video games usually are not solely hosted in Paris. For individuals who won’t have the possibility to see one of many occasions, at the very least this can be a method to really feel concerned.”
The relay carrying the flame will start on Thursday. The torch bearers will embrace former star gamers for Olympique de Marseille — the native soccer membership, amongst them Didier Drogba and Jean-Pierre Papin — in addition to Alexandre Mazzia, a three-star chef with an acclaimed restaurant in Marseille who will present meals for athletes through the Video games.
“I’m blissful and proud to be a part of this distinctive occasion,” Mr. Mazzia mentioned in a short interview. He added that carrying the flame, for him, represented “values of fraternity, of engagement, of artisanal work and of French savoir-faire.”
The frilly relay will contain greater than 10,000 individuals and can embrace France’s abroad departments in addition to mainland France and Corsica. The torch, on a form of grand tour of France on the planet, goes to Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Réunion, between June 9 and June 17. It can make a primary cease in Paris on July 14 and 15, earlier than returning there on July 26 for its set up within the Jardin des Tuileries, between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde.
One concept behind the relay is to knit collectively France, which has not been solely persuaded by the prospect of the Olympics. A survey final month by the Ipsos polling institute discovered that solely 53 % of French individuals have been within the Video games; some 37 % of individuals dwelling exterior of Paris felt solely detached. Whereas curiosity and enthusiasm have been rising in latest months because the Video games method, there may be nothing resembling unanimity in France.
An opinion piece revealed on Wednesday within the left-wing every day Libération and written by a number of native officers in Marseille, together with two deputy mayors, illustrated a few of the issues.
“Let’s open our eyes” they wrote. “The flame is arriving in a fortress Europe that has forgotten its traditions of greeting and hospitality,” they added, alluding to makes an attempt by far-right events to clamp down on rising immigration. The Olympics would harm the native setting, they mentioned, and in Paris “will speed up the phenomena of gentrification and expulsion of poor individuals.”
Marseille is a standard rival of Paris, in sporting phrases and most others. Mr. Macron, a supporter of Olympique de Marseille, has been an everyday customer to town all through his seven-year presidency. He has tried, with solely partial success, to deal with the acute social issues — medication, violent crime, excessive poverty — that plague components of the Mediterranean metropolis.
However on Wednesday, the ambiance in Marseille was resolutely upbeat. Music stuffed the air and the sounds of horns rose from the armada of boats welcoming the Belem below blue skies within the calm, glittering harbor.
The climate smiled on a metropolis that has identified greater than its justifiable share of violence and hardship, whereas retaining a fierce delight and the openness of a port metropolis. As a logo of the promise of the French Olympics, the selection of Marseille appeared apt.
Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting.
