Born in 1903, the Tour de France, which will start this year on July 1 from Bilbao, Spain, celebrates its 110th anniversary – after deducting the two times five years of interruption due to world wars. More than a century, therefore, during which French society has been completely transformed, bringing the most popular cycling race in the world with it.

For this anniversary, building on the success of Formula 1: pilot of their destiny and Break Point (on tennis), Netflix offers a new documentary series, In the heart of the peloton, filmed in the wheel of the riders of the Tour 2022.

On France 3, the documentary filmmaker Jean-Louis Pérez aims to bring together lovers of the little queen but also simple onlookers and the curious, by telling them the long history of the Grande Boucle. Built around archive images, his work gives voice to anonymous people concerned by the Tour. The cyclist was for a long time “a beast of burden”, says Jean-François Mazan, grandson of Lucien Petit-Breton, the first rider to win the Tour twice, in 1907 and 1908. At the same time, in a country where he there are no paid holidays or distractions, the passage of these “convicts of the road”, as the journalist Albert Londres called them, becomes the first accessible festive event.

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Everyone recounts their memories. Jean-Emmanuel Ducoin, writer and journalist, who covered 33 Tours for the daily L’Humanité; Emile Mercier, descendant of the founder of the Mercier cycles, in Saint-Etienne; Carine Bobet, granddaughter of Louison Bobet, victorious in 1953, 1954 and 1955, but too elegant to be loved by the people. For Amar Hamada (Montpellier), son of Algerian immigrants, “the Tour was the entertainment of the summer”; for Patrice Gaspari (Dijon), of Italian origin, the cycling event allowed him to shine in geography. Racism ? They suffered it, of course, but never during the race, both assure.

In 1919, the route passes through Alsace and Lorraine, newly reconquered; on July 1, 1987, he left West Berlin, two years before the fall of the Wall. Jacques Chirac, then Prime Minister, is present there. The Tour is so popular that politicians cannot ignore it – with the notable exception of Georges Pompidou. In front of the camera, the elected officials have only one dream for their municipality: to become a “stopover town”.

Economically, exacerbated consumerism and its consequences could have killed the Tour. Bernard Tapie, owner of the La Vie Claire team, enlists Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault. According to Jean-Emmanuel Ducoin, the businessman “imposes on them who will win”. The film does not ignore the cash years, their excesses, their excesses, headed by doping. He returns to the Festina, Ulrich and especially Lance Armstrong cases, seven times fallen winner… The Tour comes out bloodless and seems to have lost its soul.

“However, the people are still there,” rebounds Carine Bobet. Along the roads and in front of their small screen. In 2022, the Grande Boucle attracted 41.5 million viewers. Can we talk about magic? Once again, he adapted: the women’s Tour is (finally) a success, and each stage of the men’s Tour is preceded by a sequence on biodiversity. The film just forgets one key element: the Tour de France remains free, both on television and on the roadside. Free, a precious asset to be protected.