The Merlus are in the street.
The avenues of Lorient (Morbihan) are full of people to wish the runners a good day.
The "Gwenn ha du" are distributed round the clock and these flags with black and white bands, speckled with ermine from the region, flutter in the wind.
The eldest daughter of cycling, Brittany has been honoring the Tour de France for three days.
Bruised by a year 2020 under a bell, the race comes back to life in the middle of the crowd.
He had to plant his caravan on bicycle land to remember the sensations before, those where the Covid-19 did not exist: "The virus, but what virus are you talking about?
wonders Hugo, a thirty-something who came with his family from Morbihan.
We are there to forget him, not to talk about him for a few hours.
There is nothing better than the Tour, its party, its music, its colors, its good humor to make us forget our worries.
It might not last long, but how good is it!
"
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Yes it is good to guess smiles, even under the fine fabrics of fabric.
The mask obviously remains compulsory when the runners pass.
It will be so until Paris.
The peloton and the followers are always safe in a supposedly airtight bubble.
But for the rest, welcome to the world before: “What joy!
smiles Laurence, a fan under her bob in the colors of the polka dot jersey.
The Grande Boucle is the first event since the first confinement on which we can come without restriction.
"
“Of course,” adds Benoît, “we respect barrier gestures.
We do everything right, but we are not prohibited from anything.
If I want to approach my neighbor whom I don't know, who will stop me?
This is also the Tour, right?
We talk to people we don't know while waiting for the runners.
"
We had no doubts in Brittany but we have an impressive crowd on the roads of the Tour de France.
The images we love, all the more after many complicated months.💛 # TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/QgTK9s0T2N
- The Gruppetto (@LeGruppetto) June 26, 2021
The Breton downpour, which suddenly fell without warning and stopped so quickly, did not change anything.
On the road leading to Pontivy, as was the case in the Fosse-aux-Loups hill where Julian Alaphilippe triumphed and in Mûr-de-Bretagne where Mathieu van der Poel left the peloton in place, the slightest climb of the course is stormed by a cheerful and family crowd.
It promises for the mountain.
“I remember the Tour on TV last year, remembers Pascal, Lorientais.
It had already taken place in September and I was content with summaries in the evening because I was working.
I especially remember a kind of sadness: I had the impression that there was no one to encourage, no one in the passes because everything was forbidden.
»Behind his back, the loulous of the Sainte-Marie nursery school stand on their little feet to try to see a vehicle from the caravan and pick up a candy.
"I still have shivers"
Put a name on the yellow or green jersey, they don't know. But they will remember this moment later: “All French people have childhood memories linked to the Tour de France,” says Jean, in his sixties. I remember when I went with my father to see the Tour pass. I saw Merckx, Ocaña, Thévenet and when I returned, I played little runners to have the impression of reliving the race. I still have shivers. Being there is a way of paying homage to my father. He loved the Tour and we had to find a moment every year to come to a stage. It was great. "
