Paris will never forget these Olympic Games. Nor will France.
The best in history? It has been said of others, but these were, by far, better than the Parisians and the French could have imagined. They just can’t believe it.
—There is a certain joy… a desire to be together…
It’s Friday afternoon, 48 hours before the Olympic Games close, and this pedestrian is approaching the Club France, the epicentre of French fans in the Parc de La Villette, in the north of Paris. Fatou speaks while watching the football final between Spain and France on the giant screen. Neither she nor those accompanying her – Sidik, Mya, Makena: a family from the outskirts – will forget it.
Even if trains arriving on time are not news, it must be said: Paris 2024 has been a resounding success. At least for Paris and for France.
It was not obvious that this train would arrive on time. The organisation was going to be a disaster, just like the Champions League final in Saint-Denis in 2022. Public transport? Chaos. And the terrorist attacks: what recklessness to organise the opening ceremony on the Seine. Add to this the proverbial French pessimism. There were complaints, nothing was going to go right, Parisians would go into exile en masse. And the poisoned political atmosphere: in the legislative elections, a few weeks before the Olympics, the far right was closer than ever to power.
But Paris has shone, and the contrast with the previous atmosphere highlights the light. There has been no organisational chaos or attacks, budgets have not gone out of control and the French have been thrilled with the medals and with their capital. The idea of taking sports out of the stadiums and taking them to the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Palais, the Place de la Concorde or the Seine was bold. It was a success. Today, Paris, freed from bad vibes, seems a city both old and new: light, floating, ironic like the cauldron that rises over the Tuileries every evening.
“Paris superstar,” headlines the left-wing daily Liberation. AND The Figaro: Right-wing: “Paris 2024: Happy France”.
To understand what has happened in recent days, I call one of the masterminds behind Paris’ urban transformation, Sorbonne professor Carlos Moreno. “Parisians,” he explains, “have reconciled with their city. And the city has reconciled with the river.”
Moreno, author of The proximity revolution. From the world city to the 15-minute citysees Paris 2024 as the embodiment of the urban planning that he has been developing for years with Mayor Anne Hidalgo. With most of the events taking place in the city centre, everything was close by, as if the competitions, the city and its inhabitants had merged into one.
“No Games have had the capacity to permeabilize “A whole city with its inhabitants,” he says. “Even the people who left, came back.”
It has been a break in the middle of a turbulent summer. A break in France, without a government since the legislative elections and with a partisan battle that will resume on Monday. And in the world: the massacres in the Middle East or the attacks in Ukraine, the wars have not stopped, but the organizers (the IOC, President Emmanuel Macron and his diplomatic apparatus, the Hidalgo City Council) have preserved the Olympic bubble from these conflicts.
I call David Djaïz, author of The new French modelformer advisor to the Elysée Palace and analyst of the country’s ills. “What France has shown,” he says, “is that it belongs to a rather restricted club of countries capable of organising major events, with professionalism and originality.” He continues: “French creation has been valued: fashion, music, arts and crafts, and what a contrast with the political depression! What a contrast between the vitality of society – because sport, creation and business are society – and the institutional and political illness!”
Djaïz warns against the temptation to exaggerate the Olympic effect. He recalls that the Games were mainly held in Paris. That tickets were not cheap. And that, he might have added, there are still plenty of Parisians who went on holiday and do not regret it, and French people who see them as something inaccessible and far away. But he adds: “There was a moment of communion, collective joy and patriotic pride. Human relations are more friendly, the city is more peaceful, the people more pleasant.”
Let us return to the Club France, where thousands of French people, wrapped in the flag and in an atmosphere that is, let us admit, sometimes excessively patriotic, have celebrated their champions every day. Let us return to Fatou’s family and the young Sidik, Mya, Makena, who have come from the suburband let’s listen to what Fatou tells us, pointing to the crowd:
—There are blacks, whites, Arabs, with or without veils, and all wearing the colours blue, white, red. Let us hope that this experience shows that we can all live together and share the joys.
Paris, which is coming out of a decade marked by attacks, the Notre Dame fire and social crises, deserved this success. And it will leave its mark. In material terms, the Olympics have allowed urban and ecological transformation to take place. There is something else that is invaluable: the boost in self-esteem. And the rediscovery of a city about which we thought everything had already been said and in which everything seemed to have been done. Today Paris is definitely entering the 21st century.
This summer, Paris will never forget it (and neither will pedestrians).
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