Paris 2024 Olympic Games: 19:31, Olympic flame in France!

It’s the end of a journey and the beginning of another, long-awaited journey until the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris on July 26. The Olympic flame arrived this Wednesday, May 8, in Marseille, where the Belem, an ancient three-masted ship, called at the Vieux Port early in the evening, after a 12-day cruise from Greece, the cradle of the Olympic Games, where it was lit on April 16.

It was exactly 19:31 when Florent Manaudou, Olympic champion in the 50m freestyle in London 2012, descended from Belem after a fabulous spectacle: it began with the launch of the OM Massalia ultras, followed by fireworks. a demonstration of blue, white and red “recycled biodegradable confetti”, “La Marseillaise”, before a flyby of French Patrol planes that painted the Olympic rings in the sky, followed by the famous blue, white and red tracks.

Rapper Jule sets fire to the cauldron

The Belen moored to a floating pier simulating a 100-metre athletics track, and then Florent Manadou disembarked in front of a crowd of 150,000 people, “recycled biodegradable confetti” and in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron, receiving several whistles.

Florent Manaudou passed the torch to Nantenin Keita, a Paralympic athlete, who herself passed it on to Marcel’s star rapper Jules, who lit the first cauldron of the torch relay, which will burn every evening in each host city. “I’m very proud to do this tonight,” he said into the microphone.

On the wall of Fort Saint-Jean, the most gigantic banner, 150 m long, with the caption “Massalia” glorified the Greek origins of the Phocian city, with the face of Hyptidas, that young woman from the local tribe who would fall in love with Protis, the Greek navigator who landed on the shore in 600 BC J.C.

” This is madness “

Departing from the north of the city, accompanied by a thousand ships, the Belem had previously spent the entire day marching facing the city to the south, from Estac to Gud, in particular through the Catalan beaches and the Prado. Aboard the three-masted ship, young crew members sat in the front row to watch the spectacle: “This is crazy,” exclaimed Yacine Nassa, 19, an accounting student from Marseille.

In the Old Port, where the Olympic cauldron was due to be lit for the first time at 7:45 p.m., the crowd continued to swell throughout the day under the supervision of a massive security system far superior to that deployed in September 2023. for the visit of Pope Francis.

“Look at the people in this port, it’s magical,” marvels Marie-Josée Perec, three-time Olympic champion in athletics and Olympic consultant for the French company Parisien-Aujourd’hui. “It gives me goosebumps. I told myself but it’s not you who will make the Games, but others. And we envy them, we tell ourselves that they will experience something crazy, bigger than anything I’ve experienced, because it’s at home. »

Follow live commentary on the arrival of the Olympic flame in Marseille in France on Paris site.