The Tour de France organizers have updated their rules to not guarantee a place for any team for 2008.  This means the ProTour teams are not assured a spot at the start.

“There will be discussions but no one can be sure yet of being at the start of the Tour,” Prudhomme told reporters before the route for the 95th race was unveiled.

They’ve also updated their rules to require the “biological passport” that is currently being implemented by the UCI and WADA.

The Tour route been reworked a bit to “break the classic scenarios”.  The basic idea of the route change is to prolong the suspense of figuring out the winner.  Also, the following link includes a nice map, with more details about the changes to the route.

Read more about the 2008 Tour rule changes.