“If you don’t want it, I’ll stop breathing” – L’Express

It is the best-kept secret of these Olympic Games: the opening ceremony and the details of what promises to be the greatest show of the century. For the first time in the history of the Olympics, the big party that marks the official start of the events will take place outside a stadium, on a river – the Seine – and in the very heart of the host city. At exactly 7:30 p.m. Paris time, this Friday, July 26, a little over a billion television viewers will have their eyes glued to their screens. On the banks of the Seine, more than 200,000 spectators will gather on the free but invitation-only upper quays, and around 100,000 on the paying lower sections, to watch the river parade that will last nearly three hours and forty-five minutes.

At the helm of the ceremony, director Thomas Jolly surrounded himself with novelist Leïla Slimani, the screenwriter of Ten percent Fanny Herrero and the historian of the Collège de France, Patrick Boucheron. Daphné Bürki designed the costumes for some 2,000 artists. Céline Dion, Aya Nakamura and Yseult are said to be among them.

The technical part of the ceremony was directly managed by the prefect of Ile-de-France Marc Guillaume and his teams. From mid-afternoon, the 120 expected dignitaries will board a bus from Place de l’Etoile, heading for the riverbanks. The 8,500 athletes will gradually leave the Olympic village in Saint-Denis aboard 240 buses to reach the banks of the river upstream from the Pont d’Austerlitz, the starting point of the parade. The athletes from the 206 delegations will then board the 85 boats and barges rented for the occasion. 11 reserve boats have been requisitioned in case of a problem with a boat. The journey to reach the Pont d’Iéna should take 42 minutes for each boat, at a planned speed of 9 kilometers per hour. In addition to the parade boats, there are also five boats dedicated to filming and 15 Zodiacs responsible for regulation. A meticulous organization based on the 12 artistic tableaux that should take place along the Seine. All the boats have been combed over in recent days and the captains have been trained at length in Belgium where they have trained on a simulator costing several hundred thousand euros, specially programmed for the occasion.

What about Zidane?

The show should also take place in the air: the airspace will be closed for six hours above the capital and the Patrouille de France has been requisitioned. Then remains the last unknown of the evening: who will be the last bearer of the Olympic flame? Among the names mentioned: Zinédine Zidane and Marie-José Pérec. On France 2, Tuesday July 23, Emmanuel Macron did not deny the name of the second. But will she come alone?

This audacious ceremony came from the fertile brain of Thierry Reboul. On June 23, 2017, this fifty-year-old event specialist had already imagined an athletics track on the Seine, on the occasion of “Olympic days” dedicated to promoting the Paris 2024 candidacy. Hired by the Olympic Games Organizing Committee (Cojo) as director of ceremonies, he had a flash while walking along the banks: the big parade could only take place there. For months, he worked in secret and then shared with Tony Estanguet during a meeting on July 18, 2019. For the occasion, he accompanied his PowerPoint with a drawing of Pépé, the sulking child ofAsterix in Hispania. “If you don’t want what I’m going to propose, I’ll do like Pépé: I’ll stop breathing!” he warns. In the end, he will never have needed to hold his breath. From Cojo to Emmanuel Macron, the project excites everyone.

To make the madness credible, it was necessary to revise certain outrageous ideas. There will never be a million spectators, as initially dreamed, but 326,000 people on the banks of the Seine. The project of making access to the banks completely free was also quickly discarded. In the end, invitations will be used: this system allows for more convenient screening of the spectators present.

Some 155 administrative control measures, including house arrests, have been taken by the Ministry of the Interior. 45,000 police officers will secure the opening ceremony, including 100 agents from the Paris river brigade, mobilized on the water; an average of six drones are intercepted daily near the Olympic sites. On the television side, eight drones, properly authorized, will fly over the Seine. For an unforgettable show?