Halle Berry carries Olympic torch along the streets of Cannes

Halle Berry brought a touch of Hollywood glamour to the Olympic torch relay by carrying the flame along the streets of Cannes.

The actress lit her torch on the steps of the French city’s Palais des Festivals building on Tuesday (June 18) alongside Thierry Fremaux, the director of the Cannes Film Festival, and she carried the Olympic flame along the famous Promenade de la Croisette before handing it over to three-time Olympic gold medal-winning snowboarder Shaun White.

The torch run took place during the 2024 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – which had to be shut down temporarily to make way for the ceremonial passing of the flame.

The torch relay takes place ahead of the Summer Games in Paris and other carriers have included Formula 1 racer Charles Leclerc, as well as Monaco’s Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene.

The flame is lit in Olympia, Greece – the ancestral home of the Olympic Games – and travels across the world to the city where the games are taking place.

Once the relay hits Paris, the flame will be used to light up a cauldron during the opening ceremony on July 26. It will remain lit for the duration of the games until it is extinguished during the closing ceremony.

The opening ceremony is set to make history as it will be the first time the event is not held within a stadium. It will instead stretch across Paris’ River Seine and feature more than 3,000 dancers lining the city’s bridges.

It’s set to take place at sunset and last for around four hours.

Theatre director Thomas Jolly is taking charge of the opening ceremony and he told Le Parisien newspaper he’s faced plenty of challenges along the way.

He said: “An opening ceremony has never been held outside of a stadium. There is no model, it’s absolute creation…

“[Regarding the dancers on the bridges] we were told that everyone doing the same step at the same time would endanger the bridge’s solidity…

“I wanted to build an upside-down Eiffel Tower. I thought it would be pretty for lighting the Olympic flame. But it wasn’t doable.”