One of the most popular sights during the Paris 2024 Olympics was not a sports event, but a balloon lift-off at the Tuileries Garden, Reuters reports. At sunset, the Olympic cauldron – designed to pay homage to the Montgolfier brothers and their pioneering hot air balloon – lifted off nightly from the gardens, where hundreds of people from all walks of life gathered to enjoy the sight. The balloon could be seen from different vantage points – the Louvre museum, across the Seine River, the Champs Elysees avenue. One year later, the cauldron is back by popular demand. “It was the public who began to suggest the idea, ‘what if’, and no doubt the desire to keep the Olympic cauldron forever, or in any case for longer than just the duration of the Olympic Games, and so things gathered momentum,” said the creator of the Olympic cauldron, designer Mathieu Lehanneur. French state-owned electric utility EDF, which is in charge of the flame, has said the flame is based on the simultaneous and controlled projection of a spray of mist and a powerful beam of light. In the late 18th century, barely two weeks after the Montgolfier brothers’ lifted off, physician Jacques Charles launched the first hydrogen-powered balloon from the Tuileries Garden. “It is a message of a kind of power and fragility at the same time… For me, this cauldron tells a little bit of all that. It also tells a story, because it is in France that the first balloons were created, it is in France that for the first time humans took off,” Lehanneur said, adding that he hoped to celebrate the spirit of innovation in France. Workers began inflating the balloon at the Tuileries Garden on Tuesday (June 10), in preparation for its June 21 lift-off, in time for a concert marking the Fete de la Musique. President Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to visit the site on Thursday, June 12. “I think it’s a good idea, because all these logistics cost a lot of money, and it’s important that what was installed can be continued, and that people can enjoy it for the longest time possible,” retired school teacher Claire Besinet said, as she was strolling past the balloon site. The cauldron will make an appearance for the next three summers in Paris, and for now, there are no plans to install it in a permanent place, Lehanneur said.