The spirit of the flame...

"You only see this once in a lifetime," someone told us this morning in front of the Cité des Climats et Vins de Bourgogne, impatiently waiting for the Olympic Flame. And when Denis Brogniard, the famous television presenter and Dijon native, the final torchbearer, appeared around 12:45 at the end of the walkway, a dense, joyous crowd of several hundred people rose as one, in an atmosphere worthy of a World Cup final. A few minutes later, the lantern, in which the flame of the games burns—a reference to the sacred flame that burned at Olympia throughout the ancient period of the games—was carried through the crowd, receiving an almost religious welcome. "It's good for everyone," a colleague whispered in our ear, alluding to the news following the legislative elections. No doubt, but it seems to us that this atmosphere, the welcome given to THE flame, reveals the universal, timeless value of the Olympic spirit through all that it has represented since its origins and which goes well, well beyond the current ridiculous turpitudes of French politics.