PARIS: The torch relay ahead of the Paris Olympics reached the French capital for the first time on Sunday, with organizers hoping to build enthusiasm for the Games among the city’s sceptical residents. The flame was first glimpsed during the traditional military parade held every year on the July 14 national holiday and then began its tour around the city from the Champs-Elysees.

World Cup-winning footballing great Thierry Henry was given the honor of the first leg on the capital’s most famous avenue, with the torch then heading for landmarks including the parliament and Notre-Dame cathedral.

“It’s not something you turn down, on our national day, on the Champs-Elysees, the Olympics in Paris,” Henry told reporters of his star turn. “Just extraordinary.” The build up to the Paris Games has been marked by what chief organizer Tony Estanguet has called “Olympics-bashing”, with many Parisians the sternest critics of the event and the disruption in the city.

In the wealthy districts, many families have already left for extended summer holidays, deliberately missing the July 26-August 11 extravaganza. “I’m following them putting up the equipment, the stadiums, the impact that it will have on us, not really the torch,” 22-year-old student Manon Skura told AFP at the Champs-Elysees.

The Games have been designed to take place at locations in the heart of the City of Light, with temporary stadiums built at tourist hotspots such as the Eiffel Tower, Invalides and Place de la Concorde. Using the capital’s fabled streets and the river Seine as a backdrop will ensure “iconic” Olympics, organizers say, but it has also led to large parts of the center being closed off and left traffic in gridlock.

‘Delighted’

The latest change to the capital’s streets has been the appearance of around 44,000 metal barriers around the river Seine, where a spectacular opening ceremony is being planned on July 26. “Some residents have shared with us their amazement, as well the physical impossibility of leaving their homes,” the mayor of the upmarket river-side 7th district of Paris, Jean-Pierre Lecoq, said last week.

Chief organizer Tony Estanguet told AFP that pushing back the pessimists had been one of his most difficult tasks. “My role has been to protect our vision against everyone who criticizes, those who don’t believe in it, those who would take pleasure in seeing it not go well,” he said during an interview on Thursday. The torch relay had been a huge success nationally, he said, with around five million people turning out to see it since May 8. “We’re delighted with how it has gone so far,” he explained. “It has completely met the targets we gave ourselves.”

Most importantly, the relay through 450 French towns and cities has taken place without any major security problems—testimony to the huge numbers of police officers deployed and careful planning. Around 200 members of the security forces are positioned permanently around the torch, including an anti-terror SWAT team and anti-drone operatives.

A 26-year-old man was arrested and charged in Bordeaux in May over suspected threats to the procession as it travelled through the southwestern city. Although polls generally find a slim majority of French people support the Olympics, a survey on March 25 by the Viavoice group found that 57 percent of respondents felt “little” or “no” enthusiasm about them in Paris.

The flame will remain in the capital on Monday for a second day when it is scheduled to be greeted by can-can dancers outside the famed Moulin Rouge cabaret show and travel up to the hill-top Montmartre cathedral. – AFP