Paris Olympic thrills put France's political woes on backburner

Sheer joy at the Games, which end on Sunday, has led critics to tone down their objections

French fans enthralled by the Olympic swimming. Reuters

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In a commuter train leaving Paris for a western suburb this week, a surprising scene played out. Strangers started talking to each other. They excitedly swapped stories. The reason? The Olympic Games.

Wearing Paris 2024 T-shirts, an elderly couple opened a conversation with a man in his thirties watching a fencing bout on his phone with his son.

“Aren't the Games amazing? We needed it, after all the stress we went through with the elections,” said the older man before discussing fencing rules.

A few minutes later, he and his wife got off the train after a polite goodbye. It was an unusual scene on public transport where people usually avoid the gaze of other passengers and tensions can boil over because of lack of space.

After months of opinion polls showing widespread indifference and anxiety over the Paris Olympic Games, France has been taken by surprise by its own enthusiasm for the international sporting event. It draws to a close on Sunday after two weeks of athletic excellence in which the home nation has shone, the public rallying around their efforts.

This has led to introspection from some commentators, now worried they contributed to needless negativity about worries over security and transport.

“At what point does critical thinking take the shape of systematic negativity?” asked Simon Le Baron this week on his morning show on France Inter, the country's most popular radio station.

Paris lit up

The most obvious symbol of this unabashed excitement for the Games has been the popularity of the Olympic cauldron, which was lit at the opening ceremony on July 26 and sits inside a hot-air balloon.

Every night after sunset, the balloon rises carrying what looks like a ring of fire above the Tuileries Garden near the Louvre, in perfect alignment with the scintillating Eiffel Tower.

For the first time in the history of the modern Olympic Games, the flame is not real fire – it's an illusion created by mist and beams of light. Organisers made the choice out of safety and environmental concerns.

The golden balloon is free to visit but spots must be reserved in advance. It has proven so popular that the 10,000 daily places sell out quickly. Thousands have gathered in areas that are free to access nearby as alternative viewing spots.

There are families, tourists and people stopping by after work. Wearing a white shirt with his jacket slung across a shoulder, Philippe, a manager at the Paris region public transport network, was part of the crowd on a recent night.

“Everybody's talking about the cauldron at work,” he says. “It's beautiful.”

Frederique, 56, a pharmacist, says people now laugh at their pre-Games pessimism.

“It's very French to complain like that,” he said. “I've even heard from friends who now say they regret leaving Paris for the Games.”

'LA, you have a problem'

Both men say they are happy that France's reputation has improved thanks to the Games. Like many, they follow what the rest of the world thinks closely.

In private, officials have difficulty in hiding their pleasure at social media posts such as “Los Angeles 2028, you have a problem”, written by The Economist's Paris bureau chief Sophie Pedder and reposted more than 5,000 times.

The post was accompanied by pictures of beach volleyball in front of the Eiffel Tower, fencing at the Grand Palais, horse riding in Versailles and BMX at Place de la Concorde.

“I don't think they have a problem, but they have a challenge,” one French diplomat said. “It was a bold initiative. It was difficult. Honestly, we didn't make our life easy with this project, but it was worth it. It is worth it.”

The general good mood has even spread to the public's relations with security forces, which are usually more on the tense side.

The police and military have deployed nearly 50,000 personnel across the city. Public displays of appreciation for their work have soared as videos spread on social media of them dancing and playing ball sports with civilians.

Parisians and tourists frequently pose for selfies with French police and troops, alongside some of the 1,800 foreign officers from 44 countries sent to support them.

“Taking pictures with foreign policemen has become a new Olympic discipline,” the diplomat said, amused.

France is falling squarely in the three expected stages that the host of the Games tends to experience, said Armand de Rendinger, a consultant and Olympic Games expert.

First complaints, second implementation and euphoria, and third, expected for September: depression and accountability.

“For [the] Games to succeed, organisation has to be impeccable. And the host country has to obtain the maximum number of medals in the first days. Then, mobilisation can be fantastic,” Mr de Rendinger told The National.

France has so far won 54 medals, 11 more than its previous record at the 2008 Games in Beijing.

It ranks fourth behind US, China and Australia and has also won 14 golds, one short of its 1996 record haul in Atlanta.

Athletes become superstars

The country's new heroes include swimmer Leon Marchand, 22, previously unknown to the French public at large, and 17-year-old bespectacled table tennis champion Felix Lebrun.

As La Marseillaise, the country's national anthem, resonates in stadiums, there have been videos circulating that show people swapping the word “marchons” – “lets' walk” – with “Marchand”.

“Athletes have finally seized power by winning medals and fulfilling expectations,” said Mr de Redinger. “It's created a passion for the Games that I've rarely seen before.”

Few have wanted to break this joyous spirit after weeks of soul-searching since the far-right's historic win at a European election that triggered snap national polls in early July.

The far-right's anti-migrant rhetoric left many French citizens of African or Arab heritage wondering if they were second-class citizens.

A system of alliances limited its gains in the parliamentary election but the country is now mired in paralysis, with a caretaker government.

Only a few months ago, far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen had lashed out at the idea of pop star Aya Nakamura singing at the opening ceremony.

Ms Le Pen mocked Ms Nakamura, who is originally from Mali, for her use of the French language and said her presence would be a “humiliation for the French people”.

But the politician, 56, daughter of her party's founder and Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, chose silence after the opening ceremony.

It featured Ms Nakamura singing and dancing to her hit song Djadja surrounded by the Republican Guard in uniform. Approval ratings for the ceremony were above 80 per cent in France.

Ms Le Pen then posted a series of social media posts congratulating French athletes and the national railway company for its quick reaction to apparent sabotage on the morning of the opening ceremony, the only major glitch so far.

Her party, the National Rally, is loath to appear a killjoy. “The controversy between the left and right has died down for now,” said Mr de Rendinger.

“Leveraging the Games to make society more inclusive” was one of the mission statements of Paris 2024, from the drag show during the opening ceremony, to the addition of “breaking” (or breakdancing), which starts Friday, to the Olympic programme.

It is a performance art, less seen as a sport, with a young and diverse audience.

“It's incredible,” says 26-year-old breaker Sebastian, resting from his spinning at the CentQuatre centre in northern Paris. “Especially for young people to get involved, to get inspired, to see this on television.”

These have also been the first gender-balanced Games in the history of the Olympiad.

France is acutely aware that this rare moment of consensus will be over soon. The Games end on September 8 with the close of the Paralympics. A change of mood is to be expected.

President Emmanuel Macron will have to appoint a new government. The Games' organisers will have to calculate exactly how much money they spent.

“We'll enter a period of depression. After such a beautiful party, people will have to be reminded of the fact that the political situation is not exactly something to celebrate,” said Mr de Rendinger.

Philippe echoed this feeling as he prepared to watch the Olympic cauldron rise in the summer sky in a cloud of smoke: “I'm a bit worried that we'll wake up from this with a hangover.”

Matt Kynaston contributed to this report