The French championships dedicated to Marie and Michel Touitou

It will not have escaped those who looked closely at the poster for the coming French championships: a logo bearing the likeness of Marie and Michel Touitou has been added.

This edition will indeed be dedicated to the couple who left us last September. Their death was a considerable loss for the microlight world. Michel Touitou was one of the founding pioneers of paramotoring in France. Together with Marie, they ran the Beaulieu-sur-Loire microlight airfield in the Loiret. Recognised as much for their performances as for their sense of friendship and sharing, the idea of dedicating the next French microlight championship to them came about quite naturally.

For Mohamed Azzouni, national technical adviser, "it was hard to organise a sporting event of this scale without mentioning them or thinking of them". Their daughter Naëlle, moreover, will be at Levroux.

This is how the "Marie and Michel Touitou Prize" came about, in tribute to these pilots who contributed so much to the development of our sports.