Paris (AFP)
The Olympic flame, which rises into the Paris sky every night under a giant balloon, has become a popular sight that could become permanent in the “City of Light.”
This unique version of the Olympic torch, located in the Tuileries Gardens between the Louvre and the Obelisk of the Concorde, is one of many innovations at this year’s Games.
In fact, this seven-metre-long fire ring at the bottom of the balloon is not fire, but rather fog clouds illuminated by LED rays, designed by EDF and powered entirely by renewable energy.
Every night at sunset, the flame is released into the sky for two hours by a 30-metre-high helium balloon, covered in a shiny paint that reflects the light.
All 10,000 places are booked each day to see the spectacle up close until the end of the Games on Sunday, and the flame will return again during the Paralympics at the end of the month.
Now, many politicians are talking about making this flame a permanent or traditional part of the Paris skyline, as has happened in other Olympic cities such as Barcelona, Sochi, and Grenoble.
That decision is in the hands of President Emmanuel Macron’s government, who told reporters last week that the idea “would be a dream for many people” and that his team “will study all of that in due course.”
The idea was first raised by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who told France 2 she was “very interested” in preserving it.
“It’s not me who decides that, because it’s on the Louvre website, which belongs to the state, so I wrote to the president,” she said.
The idea has sparked some competition, with the president of the greater Paris region, Valérie Pécresse, suggesting that it could be moved to the Parc de la Villette on the outskirts of the city if it does not remain in the Tuileries Gardens.
The designer of this new landmark, Matthieu LeAnneur, expressed his great surprise at the huge popularity it has achieved, with thousands flocking daily to take pictures.
“This affected me a lot, I did not expect it to be this bad,” he told AFP.
“It’s an inverted sunset: a daily ritual of raising the Olympic sun,” he added. “The support was immediate. We thought about designing it so that it would be completely recyclable after the Games, and now we’re thinking about a long-term future for it.”
Le Anor drew inspiration for the torch from the “history” of the hot air balloon, a pre-revolutionary French invention in 1783, and stressed that the Eiffel Tower, which “was not originally meant to last long,” “still exists in the end, and has become a very powerful symbol.”
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