100 days after the opening of Paris 2024 and on the eve of the lighting of the Olympic flame in Athens, President Emmanuel Macron symbolically launches the countdown of the awaited international sporting event which sees France, the organizing country, at the forefront . In a long speech on the television broadcaster Bfmtv and radio Rmc, the French president launched an appeal for the “Olympic truce”, for respect, for tolerance on the part of the athletes, giving a series of guarantees regarding safety.
The Olympic Games will be held – from 26 July to 11 August – in an international context of great instability due to various armed conflicts and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and Europe. In addition to the threat of jihadist terrorism spreading over the French sporting event, there is a real risk of strikes already called by trade unions across the Alps to put pressure on the government regarding some reforms on the table. “We want to show the best face of France and we want the ceremony to be as successful as possible. It’s a world first. We can do it and we will do it. We have given ourselves the means to do it, it’s worth it” began Macron, promising a great opening and closing ceremony also for the Paralympic Games.
“Our country has been hit by terrorism and what the terrorists want is to prevent us from dreaming. We are organizing ourselves, we are resisting. There is no naivety”, continued the French president. In response to this threat, Macron confirmed the existence of “fallback scenarios, plans B and C”, such as a ceremony limited to the Trocadero or a return to the Stade de Francese, as well as an exceptional mobilization of the police, the limitation of traffic, security perimeters a week before.
In reference to geopolitical conflicts, which in some way could have repercussions on sporting competition, the owner of the Elysée pledged to “do everything possible to have an Olympic truce, to silence the weapons in order to negotiate”. In his speech, Macron stressed the importance of “respect and tolerance” between adversaries, who “are not enemies”, arguing that athletes from Russia and Israel will be present and have nothing to do with the ongoing conflicts, therefore “politics should not be done” in that context.
At the center of the event is sport: in a France presented by the president as “a sporting nation”, he listed all the positive aspects that revolve around it, citing the values of respect, tolerance, its educational and health virtues, self-confidence. The declared objective is that of “sport for everyone, especially at school, starting from primary school, which must not be an accessory”.
As for the results of the Olympics, Macron has set an ambitious goal for French athletes: to enter the top 5 with 80 medals to win, and the top 8 at the Paralympics – from 28 August to 8 September – with around 40-50 medals . You then recognized a logistical weakness in the organization of the Olympic Games regarding access for disabled people to the Paris metro.
“We have a strength and a weakness. We have one of the densest metro networks in the world. Our weakness is that it is one of the oldest. We are not quite up to speed and in line with the targets in terms of accessibility regulations. The reasons are multiple. We evaluated everything. The cost of a complete transformation of the metro was unsustainable,” Macron said. During the Olympic Games, taxis will be made available for people with reduced mobility.
On the chapter of the numerous controversies that have emerged in recent weeks, including the participation in the ceremony of the French-speaking Malian singer, Aya Nakamura, which triggered racist reactions from the far right, the French president responded that they were “shocking”, promising instead a “full show with many French artists, international artists, opera singers, and with Aya Nakamura who, I hope, is on the list.” Personally, Macron will be present in Marseille on May 8 to welcome the Olympic flame, “but I don’t think it’s my place or my role to carry it. We’ll see then if someone invites me to carry it, but I’m not on the program”. Instead, regarding the commitment made by the French president to bathe in the Seine, he replied that “I have not changed my mind. I will be there before July 26th”.
At stake is the legacy of the Olympics with, insisted Macron, a series of structures and infrastructures that will be used later, the result of a long work launched in 2016. “When we talk about legacy, the Seine and the Marne will be a of the greatest legacies of these Olympic Games. And not just for diving. In these areas we will have centers for water sports, which are very close to my heart children of Seine-Saint-Denis cannot swim”, concluded Macron.