The Olympic flame has arrived on French soil on the southern port metropolis of Marseille amid tight safety, 79 days earlier than the opening ceremony of the Paris Video games.
After a 12-day journey from Greece on board the 128-year-old three-masted crusing ship Belem, the torch was carried on to land by France’s 2012 Olympic males’s 50m freestyle swimming champion Florent Manaudou.
It was handed to Paralympic observe athlete Nantenin Keita, a 400m champion at Rio 2016, earlier than Marseille-born French rapper Jul lit the Paris 2024 Olympic cauldron in entrance of an estimated crowd of 150,000 that included President Emmanuel Macron.
“It marks the tip of preparations – the Video games arrive within the lifetime of the French folks. The flame is right here. We may be proud,” mentioned Macron.
The Olympic flame relay will set off from the Mediterranean coastal metropolis on Thursday and journey round France and to 6 abroad territories earlier than arriving in Paris for the opening ceremony on 26 July.
A flotilla of greater than 1,000 boats welcomed the Belem to Marseille.
Officers mentioned 6,000 regulation enforcement officers, canine items and elite forces snipers could be on patrol.
“Life goes on in Marseille however in nice safety situations,” mentioned inside minister Gerald Darmanin. “It is an unprecedented degree of safety.”
France raised its safety risk degree final October after a trainer was killed in a knife assault, whereas there are considerations that wars in Ukraine and Gaza might enhance the risk.
In April of this 12 months, Mr Darmanin spoke of an on-line risk to European sporting occasions that he mentioned had been “publicly expressed” by the Islamic State group.
The president of the Paris 2024 organising committee, Tony Estanguet, mentioned Marseille was the “apparent alternative” to host the boat parade given it’s France’s oldest metropolis and was based by Greeks.
