Important clarification: the “Olympic and political truce” was declared by Emmanuel Macron. And does not necessarily involve Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s rebellious troops. This is why on July 25, on the eve of the opening ceremony of these Paris Olympic Games, the LFI parliamentary group in the National Assembly decided to launch a “popular commission of inquiry”. A process of hearings of stakeholders concerned or affected by the global event, until September 8, to take stock of the “social, economic and ecological implications” of these 33rd Olympics.
“The model of the Olympic and Paralympic Games organized today by the IOC no longer has anything to do with the cohesion and pleasure of sport: it consecrates the business of sport,” the Insoumis specify in their press release. “But they are completely off the mark!,” chokes an ecologist, elected representative of Paris. “It’s the only time when we are all together, after having lived through a period where we risked seeing the extreme right come to power. And here, we collectively applaud French women and men, sometimes from immigrant backgrounds. It’s the best bulwark!”
“The Insoumis are afraid that the sequence will benefit Macron”
A certain sense of timing. Because in the face of legitimate political questions, for nearly ten days now a major obstacle seems to have arisen: civic fervor. “Knowing, following these Games, what worked or not doesn’t shock me. But this popular commission is absolutely ridiculous: there is a time for everything,” gripes the leader of the socialist senators and former Minister of Sports Patrick Kanner, who criticizes “a real grumpy approach.” Are the Insoumis grumpy? Not all of them, of course – we even come across a few in fanzonewhisper the evil tongues. But it is still the LFI deputy Arnaud Saint-Martin, who on X, deplores a “chauvinistic coverage of the Olympics on the audiovisual public service” and denounces “a nationalist regression”. Or his colleague Ersilia Soudais, accustomed to controversies, who relays false information on triathletes supposedly contaminated by the water of the Seine, adorned with the comment: “1.4 billion euros spent to make fools of themselves in the eyes of the whole world…” Before making his mea culpa and deleting his message published on X.
A complex situation for theorists of permanent conflict: partisan jousts have temporarily lost their right, if only for the duration of the events. And a difficult contradiction to resolve – or not – for this formation, fond of the lexical field of popular union in a relationship that is nevertheless thwarted by these very fashionable Olympics. A former close friend tries a double explanation: “Mélenchon doesn’t care about sport, it never interested him. When he was a member of parliament for Marseille, he hated going to see OM play.” And adds: “The Insoumis are afraid that the sequence will benefit Emmanuel Macron. But that’s a mistake, because 1998 benefited Chirac as much as it did Jospin. We must remain humble: a politician will never have a third of a tenth of the notoriety of Léon Marchand.”
“We don’t play spoilsport”
On the left, some skeptics about hosting the 2024 Olympic Games are more discreet. This is the case of the Ecologists, the only ones on the Paris Council in 2015 to have opposed the capital’s candidacy to organize the event. “Even if it is regrettable and in spite of all common sense, Paris will thus be a candidate to organize the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games before even having organized a major citizen consultation,” regretted the sunflower party in a press release at the time.
A few months before their kick-off, David Belliard, Green deputy mayor of Paris, expressed his doubts in the press. “The Games will be a celebration, but will they also be a celebration for the locals?” he asked The Opinionlast February. A few months earlier, in the columns of the Parisianthe same reaffirmed his opposition to the Olympic Games, for ecological reasons. Needless to say, some Parisian socialists smiled, at the sight of this recent interview with the deputy in charge of the transformation of public space and transport, in this Austrian weekly. “Paris, capital of ecological transformation, shows how rapid change can be in a big city […] The 2024 Olympics provide new impetus.” “We’re going to hang on to this one,” jokes Lamia El Aaraje, a socialist deputy.
“We were certainly against it, but we’re not being killjoys: we respect the fervour,” explains a Green member of the Parisian executive. “They’re still popular festivals, great moments of fraternity that we need, and there are plenty of other climate-killing acts that need to be tackled before the Games. We’re not necessarily going to communicate about that.” Some are even quite enthusiastic. Like Anne-Marie Heugas, Vice-President of Sports at Est-Ensemble, Grand Paris: “In Seine-Saint-Denis, these Games are an opportunity,” explains the former high-level athlete. So among the Greens, we say: there’s a time for everything. “If they help clean up the Seine and promote cycle tourism, that’s a real victory in terms of ecology. But we’ll still have to take stock with a clear head: what about the food distributions that were stopped, about all the people we had to get rid of Paris?” asks a Parisian executive.
In the Socialist Party, on the other hand, there is no doubt, they are jubilant. “It was an opportunity to tell another story of Paris,” says Lamia El Aaraje. “Very comfortable with its heritage and its modernity. An ecological, humanist and progressive city,” she enthuses. As for politics, we will come back to it later. “It is the Olympic truce, even if we know that everything will start again. That these Games will not solve purchasing power, nor global warming. But we must accept this break sought by the French,” implores the pink baron Patrick Kanner, who will even try to take advantage of the craze to advance his proposed law on prescribed sport. And takes the opportunity to add: “Emancipatory sport is a true left-wing value!” As if there were any doubts.
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