After the success of the Olympics, Emmanuel Macron wants to establish a “national sports festival” every September 14 – Libération

Another legacy of the Olympics? Riding on the enthusiasm that the Games have generated in the capital and across the country, Emmanuel Macron wishes to establish a “national sports festival” every year, on September 14, he announced this Friday, September 13 in an interview with the daily The Parisian. “I want the French everywhere to indulge in their sport through demonstrations and competitions, with young and old alike. This will make it possible to restart, for the start of the school year, the practice of sport on a daily basis. he clarified.

The date would therefore coincide with that of the big parade of athletes from the Olympic and Paralympic Games on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées, which is to be held on Saturday. The head of state imagines a “popular sports festival, which unfolds [rait] in the street, schools, dedicated sports complexes. In our cities, our villages, our neighborhoods.”

Another presidential announcement this Friday evening: the creation of a specific decorative order for those involved in the Games – in addition to the Legion of Honor and the National Order of Merit awarded to medal-winning athletes at Saturday’s parade. This promotion of the 2024 Olympics will be published at the end of the year. She will go “from the volunteer to the RATP agent, from the police officer to Celine Dion», explains Emmanuel Macron.

Leave the rings and the basin

In the same interview, the Head of State also welcomed the decision of the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, to leave the Olympic Games rings hanging on the Eiffel Tower, at least until the Los Angeles Olympics. in 2028. “It was good not to take them off right away, she was right,” he estimated. Enough to suggest that the State will give its approval to the announcement of the elected socialist to maintain the rings until the next Olympic Games in four years, “maybe” beyond. And this, while many voices were raised against this project which would come “distort” the work of Gustave Eiffel – from the resigning Minister of Culture Rachida Dati, to the engineer’s heirs, who see it as a “alteration that undermines respect for the work of their ancestor.

In the same vein, Emmanuel Macron would like to keep “as long as possible” the Olympic cauldron, which floats above the Tuileries garden. Unlike the contested adornment of the Iron Lady, this idea received the support of many Parisians and political leaders. Especially since other Olympic host cities have already done so, from Barcelona to Sochi via Grenoble.

Obviously very concerned about the mark that the Games could leave – and the image that could be associated with his five-year term – Emmanuel Macron also called for a transpartisan parliamentary mission to analyze their legacy. “The idea is to take stock of everything that worked well […] and draw inspiration from it for the future”he clarified. And to cite the real estate heritage of the Olympic village in Seine-Saint-Denis. “We must live up to this spirit of the Games, this national harmony which has been expressed”he said. A decidedly voluble president, even though he had promised to make himself smaller after his dissolution of the National Assembly and the appointment of a right-wing Prime Minister even though the left had taken the lead.