Mélanie Berger-Volle will carry the Olympic flame to Saint-Étienne on June 22. The 102-year-old was born in Austria in 1921 into a Jewish working-class family.
She joined France in 1939, disguised as a boy, and continued her fight until the Liberation. She is the grandmother of gymnast Emilie Volle, who participated in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. The Olympic lazy relay will be an opportunity for the centenary to resonate a message of friendship between peoples, says the former resistance fighter and former mayor of Saint- Étienne, Jean-Claude Mignot. The torch will be carried by the mayor and the mayor of the Loire department, Philippe Poirier, on the shoulders of the Olympic torch bearer, the former mayor and mayor of Lille, the current mayor of Bordeaux, and the former Mayor of Paris, Anne-Marie Hidalgo. The relay will take place from June 22 to June 25.