French 19th-century three-masted barque Belem sets sails from the Piraeus port, near Athens, with the Olympic flame on board to begin its journey to France on April 27, a day after Greece handed over the torch of the 2024 Games to Paris organizers.ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/Getty Images
The organizers of the 2024 Olympics in Paris have gone to great lengths to ensure that every part of France joins in the festivities, including the country’s far-flung territories. But one corner of la République is feeling a bit left out: Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.
The tiny islands 20 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador have been something of an afterthought for centuries, tossed back and forth between England and France as minor inclusions in various treaties before finally ending up as French territory in 1816 almost by default.
As France prepares to host the Games this summer, the archipelago is finding itself overlooked once more. Organizers have mapped out an exhaustive route for the Olympic torch relay, which traditionally marks the start of the celebrations. But it won’t be passing through Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, known locally as SPM.
The torch was lit in Olympia, Greece, two weeks ago, but the French leg of the relay begins May 8 in Marseille and will wind through 65 regions before it reaches Paris on July 26, where the torch will be used to light the Olympic flame during the opening ceremonies.
Six overseas territories have been included in the route – French Guiana, New Caledonia, Réunion Island, French Polynesia, Guadeloupe and Martinique – in what organizers said was an effort to “give a new dimension to the torch relay and prepare French people from the four corners of the globe to welcome and celebrate the Games.”
No Olympic officials were available to explain why SPM wasn’t included in the relay, but the archipelago’s small population – around 6,000 – and remote location likely played a role.
Nonetheless, the snub has irked some locals.
“People don’t understand why, because we are French,” said Sophie Jalton, who teaches dance on the islands and is about to open a youth hostel. “I feel it’s strange because it goes everywhere except Saint-Pierre. That’s not exactly normal.”
Ms. Jalton said islanders already feel far removed from decision-making in Paris, given that the capital is 4,300 kilometres away. “People here in Saint-Pierre, sometimes they feel like they are put aside, forgotten,” she said. “We know that we are French, but we don’t feel that the Olympics are happening. I think if you are in Paris you will feel it more than in Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.”
She’s from Guadeloupe and came to SPM four years ago. “I like it. It’s like living in a very, very small village,” she said. “Some French people think that we are Canadian.”
Patrick Foliot, one of only two people from SPM to compete at the Olympics, was equally miffed at the exclusion.
“This passage of the torch could have made the preparation and arrival of these Olympics in France more concrete,” said Mr. Foliot, 60, who was a goaltender on the French hockey team at the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary and now runs hockey programs on the islands. “It might also have generated more enthusiasm.”
Finding much excitement for the Games on SPM isn’t easy. Mr. Foliot said some school classes have started Olympic projects and there are a couple of cultural events taking place in conjunction with the Games. But that’s about it.
“We are perhaps less involved in the excitement of preparing for the Olympics because of our geographical distance,” he said. “It remains rather abstract and distant for us.”
Ms. Jalton is doing her best to get the islands in the spirit of the Games.
She belongs to L’Asile Symphonique, a local music group that’s putting on a 10-day program of workshops and events culminating in a special production in September. The performance will centre on the number five, representing the five Olympic rings and five themes involving the roles and rights of women. It’s part of the Cultural Olympiad taking place across France alongside the Olympics and Paralympics. “It’s something really special for us,” she said.
Despite its distance from France and proximity to Canada, SPM has gone to great lengths to create its own identity. Along with speaking French, islanders use the euro and keep a separate time zone, half an hour ahead, from Newfoundland and Labrador.
As a region of France, SPM is also part of the European Union. But like most overseas territories, it’s outside the EU’s Schengen Area, which allows for the free movement of citizens from member states.
SPM isn’t the only French territory that will miss out on the torch relay. Mayotte, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin and Wallis and Futuna have also been excluded, along with France’s collection of uninhabited islands close to Antarctica.
The lack of enthusiasm for the Games also isn’t confined to SPM. A March poll of 1,000 people from across mainland France taken found that just 37 per cent were looking forward to the Olympics. In another survey of similar size in April, only 47 per cent of respondents believed France was ready to host the Games.
Organizers say it’s not uncommon for people in host countries to be less than thrilled about the Games months before the opening ceremonies; similar disinterest and concerns were voiced before the recent Olympics in Tokyo and London.
And don’t try to tell SPM’s other Olympian, Arnaud Briand, that the Games aren’t special.
Mr. Briand was a winger on the French hockey team at the Winter Olympics in 1992, 1994, 1998 and 2002, when he was also team captain. He knows all too well how Olympic fever can take hold on SPM.
“I was one of theirs to be in the Olympics, so of course it was huge, huge, huge,” he said. During each Olympics he was followed around by an SPM television crew and was named Sportsman of the Year on the islands.
Mr. Briand, 54, lives in Montreal, where he works for a chain of sporting goods stores, but every time he goes back to SPM he is greeted like a hero. “I can stop by every door, every single home almost. All the people know at least some of my career.”
He’s also convinced the islands will get into the spirit of the Games. “I think there’s a big, big excitement because it’s in France and a lot of people are involved to make people from Saint-Pierre feel like a part of France,” he said.
Paul Waldie