The Olympic flame arrived in Paris on Friday on a diesel-belching tug, the torch held aloft by its white-clad bearer, who had previously been carried by US rapper Snoop Dogg, as it went under the Peripherique freeway.
The “Epilogue” stage was the relay’s 68th since its arrival in Marseille on May 8.
The torch had already gone through Paris on July 14 and 15, the Bastille Day national holidays, before traversing the suburbs and beginning its last journey in Saint-Denis on Friday.
Earlier in the morning, the flame had visited the athletes’ village where International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon took turns as torchbearers.
Phones in hand and wearing broad smiles, athletes from all over the world filmed the torch.
“It’s a moment that gives you goosebumps, it’s beautiful to see,” said Judith Vandermeiren, a Belgian field hockey player.
The torch passed through Saint-Denis, where rapper MC Solaar, who is from the region, carried the flame, and stopped at the Stade de France where Snoop Dogg took his turn.
The flame made its way down the Canal Saint-Denis, handed off to a beaming 17-year-old schoolboy from the area.
It then boarded the first of a series of canal boats, to cruise past the concrete factories and housing blocks to Paris accompanied by a crowd of spectators, security, officials and even canoeists in fancy dress.
“It doesn’t happen very often. It’s exceptional,” said Nathalie, who did not give her surname, from the suburb of Aubervilliers as she stood on a bridge awaiting the flame.
The relay toured the Parc de la Villette, turned into the Parc des Nations housing the ‘clubhouses’ of a string of countries, dominated by France in the Grande Halle, and including Brazil in a circus tent, and Mongolia in yurts.
The relay then took to the water and cruised down the Canal de l’Ourcq towards the Canal Saint-Martin and the Seine.
