Marseille

Joyful crowds gathered along the streets of France's southern port of Marseille on Thursday to see torchbearers carrying the Olympic flame through the city's most emblematic sites, a day after it arrived on a majestic three-mast ship for a welcoming ceremony.

The Olympic torch relay began in Marseille on Thursday with football legend Basile Boli taking the flame in front of the iconic basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde, a day after it made a spectacular entrance by sea.

The Olympic torch will finally enter France when it reaches the southern seaport of Marseille on Wednesday. And it's already been quite a journey.

After being lit by the sun's rays on April 16 in Ancient Olympia, the torch was carried around Greece before leaving Athens aboard a three-mast ship named Belem, headed for Marseille.

The Paris 2024 Olympic flame sailed for France on Saturday on board a three-masted ship to mark the final sprint of preparations ahead of the Olympic Games opening ceremony on July 26.

The "Belem" left the port of Piraeus in the morning for an 11-day voyage and will arrive in the southern city of Marseille, founded by the Greek settlers of Phocaea around 600 BC, on May 8.

An award-winning French actor is being investigated over the murder of a teenager at a drug dealing point in the southern city of Marseille, a judicial source said on Dec. 12.

Protesters crashed a car into the home of the mayor of a southern Paris suburb. The mayor's wife and one of his children were injured in the impact. He said that after hitting the car, the attackers also set it on fire.

The mayor of the French port city of Marseille, Benoit Payan, said on Monday "there is still hope" of finding survivors after a building collapsed in a major explosion.

Two bodies have been found in the rubble of the building, which crumbled after a blast early Sunday morning, and six people are still missing.

The Olympic flame is going for a sail.

Instead of arriving overland, the symbolic flame alighting the 2024 Paris Games will take to the seas from its birthplace in Greece, arriving aboard a three-masted tall ship in the French port of Marseille.

Paris organizers announced the flame's journey on Friday at City Hall in Marseille, a former Greek colony founded 2,600 years ago.

The Europa League game between Marseille and Galatasaray was interrupted for about 10 minutes after rival fans threw flares and firecrackers at each other at Stade Velodrome on Sept. 30. 

The match finished 0-0 but pockets of rival fans were fighting inside the stadium more than 30 minutes after the final whistle.

Two women were stabbed to death Sunday in a suspected terrorist attack at the Marseille train station in southern France.
The assailant was shot dead by French security forcesSoldiers in France have shot a man dead at Gare de Marseille-Saint-Charles station in Marseille after multiple people were stabbed.