Hangar Y in Meudon, near Paris, hopes to host the Olympic cauldron

The site built in Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine) has submitted its application to permanently house this symbol of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

She lit up our summer and the Parisian sky. The Olympic cauldron, this ring topped with a ball which took pride of place at the Tuileries in Paris – will it reappear soon in the capital? The day after the Games, Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, said she wanted to preserve certain heritage symbols. While waiting to find a location and a consensus, the basin had been dismantled. And now, applications are open to welcome him and are sometimes surprising.

The application for Hangar Y in Meudon, southwest of Paris, was not necessarily the most obvious, but it makes sense. Firstly because the dimensions are ideal: 28 m high, 40 m wide and 70 m long, the perfect setting for the basin.

But above all, the Y hangar seemed predestined, having been built during the 1879 Universal Exhibition for experiments on airships. “It is in particular from Hangar Y that a closed-circuit airship will take off, for the first time in the world, which can return to its take-off point thanks to an electric motor. Just like the Olympic cauldron operated its flame at from water, thanks to an electrified system”explains Jean-Michel Crovesi, the general director of Hangar Y.

But this candidacy is not unanimous. “Meudon, it’s not Paris”breathes a privileged actor of the Olympics. Another point to take into account: hangar Y, although owned by the State, has a paid model. The other avenue is therefore for the basin to return to its cradle in the Tuileries. This potential return to the heart of Paris would not take place all year round, but as an event, for example for the first anniversary of the Olympic Games. With one important difference: there is no question of lighting it, because the Olympic flame only burns during the Games.