JO-2024: July sets Marseille ablaze with the Olympic flame

After a grandiose maritime parade, the Olympic flame made its majestic entry into the Old Port of Marseille on Wednesday evening, aboard the three-masted Belem, and the first Olympic cauldron of the Paris 2024 Games was set ablaze by the star of the French rap Jul.

79 days before the opening of the Paris Olympics, on July 26, for the third Parisian Olympics in history, after 1900 and 1924, the Olympic flame has finally arrived in France, after 12 days of travel from its native homeland , in Greece.

In a ceremony meticulously choreographed by Thomas Jolly, greeted by a magnificent rainbow, the flame first descended from the legendary three-masted ship into the hands of Florent Manaudou, Olympic swimming champion in 2012 in London, to applause of an imposing crowd, in this Lacydon cove where the Greeks founded Massalia, 2600 years ago.

After a few steps on a floating pontoon in the shape of an athletics track, the Marseille swimmer passed the first baton to Paralympic athletics champion Nantenin Keita, the daughter of the famous Malian musician Salif Keita, symbol of the rapprochement of the Olympic and Paralympic Games .

Then she transmitted it to a third character, dressed entirely in white and hooded.

In front of the Olympic cauldron, the first of these Paris Games, the surprise guest revealed himself: and it was Jul, a 34-year-old rapper from Marseille, who had the honor of lighting the Olympic fire for the night , before leaving for a relay across France on Thursday morning.

“It’s crazy, it’s magical, for me it’s an honor. I am very proud for France and for Marseille especially. Thank you zone!”, the musician told the audience.

Macron received by whistles

Upon its entry into the Old Port, under the eyes of President Emmanuel Macron, received by a few whistles, the Belem was welcomed by a Marseillaise, by a fireworks display of “biodegradable recycled confetti”, by the flight of planes from the patrol of France, who drew the Olympic rings in the sky, and by the essential “tifos”, these impressive banners of the supporters of the aptly named Olympique de Marseille.

Giant Tifo of OM supporters

On the wall of Fort Saint-Jean, the most gigantic banner, 150 m long, signed MASSALIA, honored the Greek origins of the Phocaean city, with the face of Gyptis, this young woman from a local tribe who is said to have fallen lover Protis, Greek sailor who landed in 600 BC. JC.

It’s a “quite special moment for us Marseillais, when we know the people of Marseille. We are there to honor when there is an event like this,” Laurent Pfister, who came with his wife and granddaughter to admire the arrival of the flame from the Palais du Pharo, told AFP.

Departing from the north of the city, with an escort of a thousand ships, the Belem had previously paraded all day facing the city to the south, from Estaque to Goudes, notably via the Catalans and Prado beaches. .

Zinédine Zidane absent

Disappointed that the guest responsible for lighting the cauldron was not Zinédine Zidane, the child of Marseille, the French football star, Jessy Pedrajas, a 21-year-old worker, who came from Istres (Bouches-du-Rhône) with his companion, was preparing to enjoy the evening, with a free concert by two other rappers from Marseille, Soprano and Alonzo.

Installed in the front row from 8 a.m., with a cooler and folding chairs, the couple had waited for hours “for the flame and for the concert”.

Soprano in any case was proud to sing at this great celebration: “It’s a great message that the two of us are here, children from the northern districts of Marseille (the poorest in the city, editor’s note), doing the Old Port , after everything we have been through,” commented the musician, one of the favorite personalities of young people in France, to AFP.

“It’s a cosmopolitan city and for the flame to come here it’s a bit logical you see, because it’s here that we see the sum of the whole Mediterranean, of the whole of Europe,” added “Sopra “.

“Look at the world on this port, it’s magical,” marvels Marie-Josée Perec, three-time Olympic athletics champion.

“It gives you goosebumps. I said to myself “but it’s not you who’s going to make the Games, it’s the others”. And we envy them, we tell ourselves that they are going to experience something crazy, greater than anything I have experienced because it is at home,” she added.

But the arrival of the flame did not only make people happy on Wednesday. A thousand people demonstrated to denounce the “rich Olympics”, with serious environmental consequences, and to demand the exclusion of Israel from the Games, as had been the apartheid regime of South Africa.

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