Paris Marathon this weekend

By Sunday morning, central Paris turns into a 42.195-kilometer racecourse, with the Paris Marathon starting on the Champs-Élysées on April 12, 2026 and finishing on Avenue Foch after crossing both the Bois de Vincennes and the Bois de Boulogne. The official race site says runners pass landmarks including Palais Garnier, Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc de Triomphe. (schneiderelectricparismarathon.com) This is the 49th edition of the race, and Sortir à Paris says the 2026 course again runs from the Champs-Élysées through Place de la Concorde, Opéra Garnier, the Louvre, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Musée d’Orsay, the Eiffel Tower, Grand Palais, Bastille, and the two big parks on the east and west edges of the city. The route is basically a sightseeing loop with 60,000 pairs of running shoes on it. (sortiraparis.com) (actu.fr) The race itself begins Sunday, April 12, with the first elite starts from 8:00 in the morning, and Actu reports staggered waves after that so tens of thousands of runners do not all hit the same street at once. That start system helps the race flow, but it also means closures ripple across the city for hours rather than all at once. (actu.fr) The disruption is not just for Sunday. A police order dated April 3 says temporary traffic and parking rules run from April 4 through April 12 for three linked events: the Paris Marathon, the Paris Run For All, and the children’s Marathoon’s on April 11 and 12. (prefecturedepolice.interieur.gouv.fr) One of the earliest restrictions hit Avenue Foch, where the police order bans traffic on parts of the right-side lanes and cycle track in stages from April 4 to April 10 as race infrastructure goes up near the finish area in the 16th arrondissement. The finish line does not appear overnight; it takes nearly a week of road space to build. (prefecturedepolice.interieur.gouv.fr) The bigger headache for drivers starts Friday evening. The same police order bans parking from 6:00 p.m. on April 10 until at least 6:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. on April 12 on streets in Paris, Saint-Mandé, Charenton-le-Pont, and Boulogne-Billancourt, including parts of Avenue Daumesnil, Avenue de Gravelle, Boulevard Bourdon, Avenue du Président Kennedy, Boulevard d’Auteuil, and Avenue Ingres. (prefecturedepolice.interieur.gouv.fr) Sortir à Paris says the marathon route itself runs through Rue de Rivoli, Place de la Bastille, Place de la Nation, Bois de Vincennes, the Seine quays, and the Auteuil racecourse area before the finish, which is why restrictions spread far beyond one neighborhood. If you draw that line on a map, it slices through the center, wraps east, follows the river west, and then closes in on the 16th arrondissement. (sortiraparis.com) For spectators and runners, the practical advice is simple: use the Paris Metro, not a car. Sortir à Paris explicitly says metro travel will be easier for following runners or getting to the event, because driving across the course on race day will be like trying to cross a river after the bridges have been lifted. (sortiraparis.com) The scale helps explain the citywide shutdown. The official marathon site says 56,950 runners set a participation record in 2025, and Sortir à Paris says the 2025 edition had more than 55,000 finishers, putting Paris among the five biggest marathons in the world by participation. A race that large does not borrow a few streets; it temporarily reorganizes the capital. (schneiderelectricparismarathon.com) (sortiraparis.com) If you are running, bib pickup opens Thursday, April 9 at the Run Experience expo at Porte de Versailles, and Actu says runners need their registration QR code, identification, and prevalidated medical documents. If you are watching, the same calendar means the race weekend has already started before the starting gun does. (actu.fr)