circleWhen the spectacular Olympic opening ceremony in Paris city center gets underway on Friday night, with boats carrying athletes sailing side-by-side down the Seine in a formation not seen since the time of Louis XV, more than France’s global image is at stake.
President Emmanuel Macron, who has promised the Olympics will “light up the hearts of the people” in a “summer of French pride”, is counting on the games to restore morale in a deeply divided country that just weeks ago warned could be facing “civil war”.
Paris is boldly aiming to surpass previous Olympics in every way, including visual extravagance, sustainability, gender equality and, defying expectations in a notoriously meat-eating nation, serving the most vegetarian food ever.
As Macron himself admitted this week at the Elysée Palace, the opening ceremony, which uses the whole city as a theatrical backdrop rather than a stadium, initially seemed like a “crazy and not very serious idea,” but these Games are about France achieving the impossible. That dream also includes France’s own big ambitions in terms of medals. After a somewhat mediocre eighth place in the medals table at the 2021 Tokyo Games, France is now aiming to finish in the top five, something it has not achieved since Atlanta 1996. Its hopes of winning gold rest on stars such as rugby ace Antoine Dupont, swimmer Léon Marchand, judokas Teddy Riner and Clarice Agbeninou, basketballer Victor Wembanyama, and men’s and women’s handball.
But perhaps Macron’s toughest political challenge will be to tap into the kind of elusive likeability factor that gave Jacques Chirac a boost after the 1998 men’s World Cup.
Just weeks before the Olympics, President Macron surprised the nation by announcing two separate parliamentary elections. The elections were seen as too risky, and some commentators initially accused Macron of “ruining the Olympics.” In the final stages, a large amount of strategic voting stifled the far-right, giving the left-wing coalition a slight lead, but short of the majority that would have allowed it to easily form a government.
This means that France is in the extraordinary situation of hosting the Olympics without a proper government, led by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who has since resigned but will remain in place for the duration of the Games as the head of a caretaker cabinet described by opponents as a “zombie”. The Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castella, had planned to precede Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo in swimming in the Seine to prove to doubters that it was clean enough for triathlons and open-water swimming competitions, but she did it so haphazardly that she ended up not being allowed to go ahead with it. Slide sideways He slid down a muddy, cobbled slope into brown water, leaving onlookers worried that it was a metaphor for a national political slapstick comedy.
Macron now wants to get domestic politics over with faster than an Olympic shot put, arguing in the Olympic Village this week that France needs a domestic political “truce” for the time being.
All eyes are now on the glitzy spectacle of the games. After decades of humiliating failed bids to host the Olympics, including a tearful loss to London in 2012, the French capital has gone all out to stage two weeks of sporting drama against a famous backdrop. The biggest star is the city of Paris itself. “We wanted to move the Olympics from stadiums to venues in the city center,” said Paris 2024 sports director Aurélie Merle.
From beach volleyball beneath the Eiffel Tower to breakdancing and skateboarding in the Place de la Concorde, the site of a famous execution during the French Revolution, these are the first Olympics that will see so many events take place in temporary venues in famous parts of the city center. Equestrian events will take place at the Palace of Versailles.
The open water swimming in the Seine comes after a major clean-up of the river, where swimming has been banned since 1923, mainly as a result of health concerns caused by unclean water and bacteria from human waste.
But as much as this lush Eiffel Tower backdrop makes the Olympics Instagrammable, France knows it must avoid the trap of turning the Olympics into a Hollywood, Emily in Paris-style photo op that bears little resemblance to the real lives of people in the greater Paris area.
Back of the medalA group of NGOs, including Doctors of the World, warned of “harassment, expulsion and invisibility” against thousands of homeless people and asylum seekers who have been removed from the Paris area as part of “clearance” operations. Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture North of Paris is one of the poorest areas in France, and is home to the Olympic Village and major events like the diving competitions at the stunning new aquatics centre. In contrast, when construction of the aquatics centre began, a survey showed that 74% of children entering secondary schools in the Seine-Saint-Denis department could not swim. One of Paris 2024’s legacy goals was to increase and improve swimming lessons for children in the area.
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“It’s a show that in the long fight against terrorism we will not cancel major events,” Macron said when Paris won the bid to host the Olympics after the 2015 terror attacks. But now security is tight — 45,000 police for the opening ceremony alone, plus a military garrison on the edge of the city — and there are fears it could dampen the party mood.
Across the city, a stretch of the river has been sealed off and surrounded by tall metal fences ahead of the opening ceremony, prompting bar and restaurant owners to complain that business has plummeted and the city is turning into an open-air prison. “How did they find all that metal fencing?” asked Catherine, a researcher who plans to holiday outside Paris to avoid the Olympics.
Gaining public support for costly global events is one of the main jobs of politicians. Just three months ago, Ellerbe Poll The survey found that 46% of French people were indifferent and 30% were skeptical. In the spring, while some Parisians were busy booking holidays as far away as possible, Mayor Hidalgo pleaded “don’t go this summer… it would be stupid,” and Yannick Noah, former French tennis player and captain of the French men’s Paralympic tennis team, said “We need to stop complaining… it’s going to be great, but I think there are a lot of people who don’t realize it.”
Enthusiasm has visibly grown in recent days as large numbers of locals have gathered to watch the Olympic flame travel through Paris and the surrounding area.
“Parisians wanted to leave because they thought it would be too crowded and too rowdy, but those of us who stayed found the city much nicer, less crowded and everyone nicer,” said Christophe, 36, a marketing manager who went to see the torch and bought tickets for the equestrian, archery and taekwondo events.
“It’s a great pride for me to be able to support the athletes as a volunteer,” said Maxime Zerrillo, 30, an osteopathic doctor who is one of 45,000 volunteers selected for the Olympic and Paralympic Games and will be part of the medical team in Marseille, home of the sailing and football events. “This is a moment when sport brings people together, when people can forget their troubles, think positively and come together in Olympic celebrations,” he said.
