Olympic Torch Arrives in France Amid Fanfare, High Security in Marseille

Thousands gathered in the French port city of Marseille as the Olympic torch arrived in the host country with less than 80 days before the 2024 Olympic Summer Games open in Paris.

A majestic three-mast ship carried the Olympic torch from Greece for the welcoming ceremony at sunset Wednesday. The ship sailed into Marseille’s Old port with the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, echoing from the embankment and a French Air Force fly over with planes first drawing the five Olympic rings and then the red-blue-white colors of the nation’s flag.

The torch was lit in Greece last month before it was officially handed to France. It left Athens aboard a ship named Belem, which was first used in 1896, and spent 12 days at sea. President Emmanuel Macron met with the French Olympic athletes who have sailed on Belem with the Olympic torch upon arrival to Marseille.

“With the arrival of the flame, the country enters the games,” Macron said at the city’s Olympic Marina.

After a day of parades, the Belem docked at around 7.45 p.m. local time in the Old Port. The first torchbearer in France was swimmer, Olympic champion and four-time medalist Florent Manaudou, who took the Olympic Torch out of its case before lighting it using a lantern. Manaudou passed the baton to Nantenin Keita, Paralympic champion and four-time medalist to symbolize Paris 2024’s ambition to bring the Olympic and Paralympic Games closer together.

Thousands of firefighters and bomb disposal squads were positioned around the city along with maritime police and anti-drone teams patrolling the city’s waters and its airspace. About 8,000 police officers were deployed around the harbor.

“It’s a monumental day and we have been working hard for visitors and residents of Marseille to enjoy this historical moment,” said Yannick Ohanessian, the city’s deputy mayor.

Quel moment !!!
Un moment d'Histoire !

Retour sur l’arrivée de la Flamme Olympique en France, à Marseille, sur le thème musical officiel des Jeux ,"Parade", composé par Victor Le Masne. pic.twitter.com/M7uueJqAQ4— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024) May 8, 2024

A total of 10,000 people will carry the torch along its route. Local police forces on each section of the relay will help to ensure security is high, providing a security bubble around the torch and its carrier. The torches burn biogas instead of propane and are recharged when fuel runs out. Around 2,000 torches will be used and are made with recycled steel and not new aluminum.

“As a former athlete, I know how important the start of a competition is,” said Paris 2024 Olympics Organizing Committee President Tony Estanguet, a former Olympic canoeing star with gold medals from the 2000, 2004 and 2012 Games. “That is why we chose Marseille, because it’s definitely one of the cities most in love with sports.”

Marseille was the home for the first match involving the host country for the 1998 World Cup as Les Bleus went on to win its first FIFA trophy. It will host six soccer matches during the 2024 Games, including two matches for each of the United States men’s and women’s teams.

What to Know About the Torch Relay

• After being lit on April 16 in Ancient Olympia, the torch was carried around Greece before leaving Athens aboard the Belem, which was first used in 1896, the same year the modern Olympics came back. It was accompanied by more than 1,000 boats as it parades around the Bay of Marseille, before arriving at the Vieux-Port, or Old Port, and docking on a pontoon resembling an athletics tracks. After leaving Marseille, a vast relay route will be undertaken before the torch’s odyssey ends with the opening ceremony of the Games on July 26 in Paris.
• The torch is due to reach Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy on May 31. Located in an area of raised land surrounded by water, the island fortress already existed during the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, from 1337 to 1453. An English attack was even fended off. Later it became a prison, and in 1979 it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• The relay route takes a detour through France’s overseas territories called the Relais des Océans, or Ocean Relay. Riding the waves of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean, it will be in French Guiana on June 9 before hitting New Caledonia on June 11. Next is the island of Réunion at Saint-Denis before reaching Papeete in the surfing realm of Tahiti, then Baie-Mahault in Gaudeloupe and finally Fort-de-France in Martinique. The torch comes back to France on June 18 in Nice.
• The torch heads up the Alpine mountain pass of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc for Olympic Day on June 23. After leaving fromage-friendly Savoie, torch bearers will digest in the Doubs region of eastern France, then visit the Alsace city of Strasbourg in the northeast. Three days later the torch will reach Verdun, the site of one of the most horrific battles of World War I.
• The torch is to arrive in Paris on July 14 —Bastille Day, France’s national day. The torch will stay the following day in Paris, then exit again before snaking back to the French capital via Versailles and the suburbs of Nanterre on July 24 and Seine Saint-Denis on July 25.
• From there, it’s to travel a very short distance back to Paris on July 26 for the Opening Ceremony. After the nearly four-hour ceremony ends shortly after 11 p.m., the cauldron will be lit at a location that is being kept top-secret until the day itself. Among reported options are the Eiffel Tower and the Tuileries Gardens outside the Louvre Museum.