Correspondents sent by their media to cover the Paris Olympics were surprised to discover a welcoming city, which gave them the impression of doing “tourism on their way to work”… except for the Greeks.
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It’s hard to say that they are totally neutral, but are we ever? But since mid-July, tens of thousands of foreign journalists – from the United States to Bangladesh, via Peru and Mongolia – have been crisscrossing Paris and its suburbs, and their verdict says a lot about the success, urbi et orbi, of this 2024 Olympic edition. Behind their “ooooh” and their “aaaaah” as they discovered sites embedded in postcards, they also had time to take the temperature of a France that has gone from acute political crisis to popular jubilation. “I expected to see a country mired in problems. I was pleasantly surprised,” says Philippe Vande Weyer, who works for the Belgian daily Le Soir. “These Games have shown that France knows how to get back on its feet.” They “illustrated a certain pride of France”, echoes her Italian colleague, Giulia Zona, dispatched to the area by La Stampa.
Crazy and grandiose, the opening ceremony set the tone for the fortnight even if 1) the rain made some reporters go crazy and 2) everyone had trouble following and understanding everything. When Philippe Katerine appeared under his bell like a blue roast chicken, a Bangladeshi accredited official packed up and left the Trocadéro site soaking wet without anyone knowing whether the spectacle was too culturally shocking for him or whether he was fed up with having litres of water poured on his head since the beginning of the evening. These four hours of spectacle in global vision “showed Paris but we saw very badly, if at all, the faces of the athletes on the boats”, remembers Giulia Zona, for whom “the city took precedence over the athletes”.
“We go sightseeing on our way to work”
Having events under the Eiffel Tower or in the Grand Palais has obviously done a lot for the reputation of Paris 2024 abroad. Sze Man Yip works for the Hong Kong daily Wen Wei Po, which sent her to cover her first Olympics in a country she had never set foot in. “The city and its urban planning, between all these old monuments and this modernity, it’s magnificent,” says the young journalist on the sidelines of a taekwondo event, under the glass roof of the Grand Palais, precisely. “With the competition sites in the city, we do tourism on the way to work.”
Crossed in the shuttle to the Olympic Aquatic Center in Saint-Denis, Carlos Pérez Gallardo wields irony. “I had been left with bad images, people not really welcoming to tourists but that was not the case,” says the photographer who works for the Reuters agency. But that is perhaps because most of the Parisians had left during the Games.” The Mexican, usually based in Los Angeles, which will host the Summer Olympics in 2028, awards two ex aequo gold medals: the competition sites – “the best in history” – and his food at the restaurant. On the gastronomic side, there was a bit of revolt in the press centers – “bananas, a few biscuits, and above all, tanks of lukewarm and undrinkable coffee,” deplores Sze Man Yip – and in the Olympic village after criticism from some athletes. Reunited with France (and Sodexo) thanks to a chocolate muffin that has become a star of social networks.
“The atmosphere was crazy”
The atmosphere in the stadiums, which Armand Duplantis, who had been brought up on applause since he was a child, enjoyed, “was very cock-a-doodle-doo, but at the same time good-natured, with respect for the foreign athletes and teams,” said Belgian Philippe Vande Weyer, who, like his colleagues, witnessed the birth of a French legend named Léon during the first week of competition. Carlos Pérez Gallardo was shooting handball during one of the Frenchman’s four gold medals: “The match was interrupted because of his run. The atmosphere was crazy. A few days ago, Marchand could walk the streets, no one recognized him. Now he’s a superstar. It’s nice to see a local hero blossom.”
But there had to be some who were out of place in this concert of praise. And it was the newspaper Ethnos, for whom 2024 will mark “the worst Olympics in history”. A dark story of unfavorable arbitration for certain national athletes and a disapproved decor – Eiffel Tower everywhere, good taste nowhere, according to them: “In Athens in 2004, we had the Acropolis and monuments from a luminous civilization, we didn’t force-feed the viewers with that.” An Olympic seum.
