Marathon de Paris set

By Sunday morning, central Paris will be split into a start line in the east-west spine of the city and a finish chute near the western edge, with the race beginning on the Champs-Élysées at 8:00 a.m. on April 12, 2026, and ending near Avenue Foch after 42.195 kilometers. (schneiderelectricparismarathon.com) The course is built like a sightseeing loop with a stress test inside it: runners leave the Champs-Élysées, pass Rue de Rivoli and Bastille, head out through the Bois de Vincennes, come back along the Seine, then finish after the Bois de Boulogne. (sortiraparis.com) The official route preview leans hard into landmarks because this race sells Paris as much as pace, with Palais Garnier, Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc de Triomphe all on or near the route. (schneiderelectricparismarathon.com) This is the 49th edition of the race, which puts it in the same category as the old city marathons that long ago stopped being niche events for club runners and turned into giant annual street closures. (sortiraparis.com) Paris has run a modern annual marathon since 1976, and the city now treats it as a fixed spring ritual in the same way Boston treats Patriots’ Day or London treats its April Sunday race. (paris.fr) The organizer is Amaury Sport Organisation, the same sports company behind the Tour de France, which helps explain why the event runs like a mass-participation race wrapped in a major media production. (aso.fr) The field is huge even by marathon standards, with the official sponsor page saying 55,000-plus runners and transit officials warning of several hundred thousand spectators along the route. (se.com) (bonjour-ratp.fr) That scale changes the city before the gun goes off, because bib pickup runs from April 9 to April 11 at Porte de Versailles and supporters are being routed with a special “Line 42km” map linking 34 metro stations near the course. (schneiderelectricparismarathon.com) It also changes traffic for days, with police restrictions covering April 4 to April 13 across parts of the 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th and 16th arrondissements and nearby suburbs including Boulogne-Billancourt and Saint-Mandé. (sortiraparis.com) For runners, the race now reflects a broader French shift in amateur sport paperwork: since 2024, the old medical certificate has been replaced for many entrants by the Health Prevention Pathway, a pre-race health clearance system called Parcours de Prévention Santé in French. (schneiderelectricparismarathon.com) And for people watching from outside France, that is the useful way to read Sunday’s event: not just as a scenic marathon, but as a city-sized operation where tourism, transit, policing, sponsorship, and mass amateur sport all have to click into place before the first runners hit Bastille. (bonjour-ratp.fr) (aso.fr)