Tokyo (AFP)
The PS mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has planned to make "a tour of France" with the Olympic flag that she will receive on Sunday at the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, synonymous with the handover between Japan and Paris-2024 , she said at a press conference in Tokyo on Saturday.
Sunday evening, the mayor of Paris will receive the flag of the governor of Tokyo through the president of the IOC (International Olympic Committee), Thomas Bach.
"We have planned, with Tony, that this flag, once arrived in Paris, can be hoisted in particular on the town hall but especially that it can also make a tour of France", she indicated alongside the president of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games organizing committee, Tony Estanguet.
"I can't wait for Sunday. I've been thinking about this moment for a very, very long time," she explained.
While the mayor of Paris will be in the Olympic stadium in Tokyo, with an artistic sequence of around ten minutes including a piece of music composed by the artist Woodkid, festivities will be held at Place du Trocadéro, in the French capital.
Concert by the electro artist Woodkid, giant flag with Paris 2024 logo, "the size of a football field" said Tony Estanguet, hoisted on the Eiffel Tower, and overflown by Patrouille de France planes carrying two lucky elected officials .
"The French delegation will be present in Paris", also specified Tony Estanguet.
The whole will form a kind of "invitation card" to the edition of Paris 2024, explained Anne Hidalgo, who insisted on the fact that these Games "had been conceived from the start as popular Games".
The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo with Tony Estanguet, the boss of the organization of the Paris Games, on August 5, 2021 in Tokyo Franck FIFE AFP
She also remembered "February 12, 2015" when she had received the prior proposal to apply for the Olympics during a year when Paris was "bruised" by the attacks.
"In this terrible moment, imagining that Paris could welcome the world in 2024, helped us to hold on and gave new hope," she said.
Asked whether the presidential campaign of 2022 could have an impact on the Olympics, while she is a potential candidate, she said that the Olympics were the subject of a "very broad consensus" and that she was "sure of continuity".
Come to attend the opening of the Tokyo Olympics, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, announced that the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics would take place on the Seine, a track on which the organizing committee has been working since several months.
© 2021 AFP