France's iconic Olympic cauldron returns to light up summer nights in Paris
A year after it captivated crowds during the Paris Olympics, a giant ballon makes its comeback on Saturday – part of President Emmanuel Macron's wish to continue the spirit of the Games.The balloon, which will become a regular summer fixture through to 2028, has been re-engineered to increase its staying power.
Issued on:
3 min Reading time
The helium-powered ballon that attracted myriads of tourists during the 2024 summer Games, is set to rise into the air once more on Saturday, lifting off over the Tuileries Garden near the Louvre.
Around 30,000 people are expected to attend the launch, which coincides with France’s annual street music festival, the Fete de la Musique.
After Saturday's flight, the balloon will lift off into the sky each summer evening from 21 June to 14 September, for the next three years.
The balloon no longer has its official Olympic branding – forbidden under IOC reuse rules – and is now called simply the “Paris Cauldron".
The 30-metre-tall, seven-metre-wide floating ring, dreamed up by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur and powered by French energy company EDF, simulates flame without fire: LED lights, mist jets and high-pressure fans create a luminous halo that hovers above the city at dusk, visible from rooftops across the capital.
Though it stole the show in 2024 – drawing in more than 200,000 visitors over 40 days, according to officials – the cauldron was only meant to be temporary, not engineered for multi-year outdoor exposure.
After President Emmanuel Macron "decided to bring it back, all of the technical aspects needed to be reviewed", Lehanneur told France's AFP news agency.
"We needed to make sure it changed as little as possible and that everything that did change was not visible," Lehanneur said.
The aluminum ring and tether points were rebuilt with tougher components to handle rain, sun and temperature changes over several seasons. Though it’s a hot-air-balloon-style, the lift comes solely from helium – no flame, no burner, just gas and engineering.
The improved attraction "will last ten times longer" and be able to function for "300 days instead of 30", according to EDF's director of innovation Julien Villeret.
Filled with 6,200 m3 of helium that is lighter than air, the balloon "will be able to lift around three tonnes" of cauldron, cables and attached parts, said Jerome Giacomoni, president of the Aerophile group that constructed the attraction.
Race to retain the Olympic cauldron begins as Paris Games come to an end
Anchored in the centre of the drained Tuileries pond, the Tuileries garden is where French inventor Jacques Charles took flight in his first gas balloon on 1 December, 1783, said Jerome Giacomoni, president of the Aerophile group that constructed the balloon.
He followed in the footsteps of the famed Montgolfier brothers, who had just nine days earlier elsewhere in Paris managed to launch a similar balloon into the sky with humans onboard.
The website vasqueparis2024.fr is to display the times when the modern-day balloon will rise and indicate any potential cancellations due to weather conditions.
The cauldron’s return is part of Macron’s effort to preserve the spirit of the Games in the city, as Paris looks ahead to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
(with newswires)
