Let’s be honest, it was a flop. The rain, seemingly unleashed by an angry Olympian deity dismayed by the state of the original Games, couldn’t stop the spectacle created by Thomas Jolly, just as Poseidon’s storms could not hinder Odysseus’s journey to Ithaca. The disruptors who paralyzed most of France’s TGV network just before the opening ceremony also fell short. Regardless, countless soaked spectators found a way to gather along the Seine to cheer for athletes and artists alike. Among them were the right-wingers who nearly choked on their café crème upon hearing French-Malian Aya Nakamura would perform that night, which she did, much to their horror, alongside the Republican Guard in full regalia, ending her act with a Charles Aznavour classic.
Argentina fared even worse. France’s new sporting scapegoats, following Chelsea footballer Enzo Fernández’s video of the Copa América winners belting out racist and homophobic chants about Les Bleus in the Argentinian locker room, managed to mess up before the Olympic flame was lit by Teddy Riner and Marie-José Pérec. Furthermore, they were eliminated from the sevens tournament by Antoine Dupont’s squad at the Stade de France – all while Argentina’s populist leader Javier Milei awkwardly visited president Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace. It couldn’t have gone worse; yet, strangely, it couldn’t have gone better. “WE DID IT!”, cheered a delighted Macron on his X account.
But should Macron have used the past tense? Just a few days into these Games, their message seems to lean more towards a declaration of defiance – “we WILL do it” – rather than a feeling of relief or satisfaction at having succeeded in this wild and costly endeavor, at least for the moment. Much of the globe perceives France as a divided, some declare “ungovernable” nation, which barely escaped having far-right rule and now finds itself with a government in limbo until the Games conclude, when Macron is expected to appoint a new prime minister. Yet this “ungovernable” nation has managed to host a spectacle that, whether considered sublime or grotesque, few other countries would dare to pull off in such a manner. If it’s chaotic, it’s a glorious chaos. And should Macron seek a new prime minister capable of uniting all of France, he could certainly do worse than Dupont, a suggestion that flooded the message board of the esteemed Le Monde newspaper following France’s victory over Fiji in the rugby sevens.
Not everything has gone according to plan. The unseasonably turbulent weather that impacted the opening ceremony and challenged cyclists during the men’s time trial is predicted to persist over the coming week, with temperatures soaring to 35C in the capital on Tuesday, followed by two days of storms and heavy rain. Despite an impressive haul of four medals on the first day, including gold in the men’s rugby sevens, there were letdowns as well. Both judoka Luka Mkheidze – a refugee who fled Georgia due to the second North Ossetia war and didn’t speak a word of French upon arriving in Le Havre at the age of 12 – and fencer Auriane Mallo-Breton came heartbreakingly close to Olympic glory but had to settle for silver. Mkheidze was let down by his kindness in the final minute of his bout against Kazakh Yeldos Smetov, while Mallo-Breton allowed world No. 1 Man Wai Vivian Kong to edge past her, 13-12, after building a strong lead in the épée final. The French handballers, reigning champions and one of the most formidable teams of the 21st century (with golds in Beijing, London, and Tokyo, and a silver in Rio), began their title defense with a disconcerting loss to their arch-rivals Denmark.
Yet, with each passing day, every reminder of the beauty of Paris and the welcoming venues for athletes, along with every medal won or yet to be won by France, which statisticians believe has a shot at finishing in the top three of the medal table for the first time since London 1948, the more frustrated and tone-deaf the almost exclusively right- and far-right critics who derided the “woke carnival” of the opening ceremony seem to be; even among those who found the event overly long and disorganized. Conversely, the communist daily L’Humanité, which has extensively covered the financial and human toll of these Olympics, was left dazzled by an “unforgettable” opening night. It’s no wonder that president Macron, present at the Stade de France for the rugby events, wears the perpetual smile of a cat that has just been granted access to the creamery.
“Even if France never agrees on anything, in the crucial moments, we know how to unite,” stated Paris bidding leader and three-time Olympic champion Tony Estanguet. That, at least, is what we French prefer to believe, conveniently ignoring that the 1790 Fête de la Fédération swiftly led to Robespierre’s Terreur. That’s the hope for these Olympics, to symbolize a nation that sometimes seems convinced it has a problem. It was never solely about sports. Paris 2024 is about reinventing France’s capital and its suburbs, a monumental initiative the French government aspires will rival Baron Haussmann’s transformation of Paris in the 19th century, with the stunning athlete’s village in Saint-Denis serving as a model. Paris 2024 aims to present to the world a new French identity that takes pride in its achievements, pursuing success through values of sustainability, diversity, and inclusion, the 21st-century interpretations of liberté, égalité, fraternité. Of course, it’s manipulative. Of course, it’s propaganda. But so far, it’s proving effective.
