Brazilian players tossing the ball around on a brand new beach volleyball court in the fields surrounding the small town of Verny in Moselle, with a population of 2,000. A sight that has become increasingly common since the department signed a partnership with the Brazilian National Volleyball Confederation, the third largest in the world. On the brand new Academos site, a sports complex completely renovated for the Games, the Brazilian volleyball and beach volleyball teams have been acclimatizing in preparation for Paris 2024. A partnership that is not about to end since at the beginning of June, it was extended until 2028. “It’s a source of pride because we were in competition with other French and European departments. We talked about Italy, Turkey… and it was France and Moselle who got it,” Patrick Weiten, president of the department, recently boasted on a local television channel.
An unexpected type of partnership made possible by hosting major competitions. And which sheds a spotlight on the interest of “sports diplomacy”. “When we saw London in 2012, we saw the shortfall”, confides Samuel Ducroquet, ambassador for sport at the Quai d’Orsay. A position created about ten years ago, after an awareness of a fragmentation of this “sports diplomacy”, left mainly to sports federations. Today, the ambition is to make it a real tool of soft power French. “At a time when we sometimes worry about the wealth of links that unite us with certain African countries, sport has become an extremely valuable complement to maintain this link between our peoples,” notes the former diplomatic advisor on sport in Qatar, mentioning for example the Dioko Alliance, a sharing of expertise between France and Senegal around the organization of the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar in 2026. Or in Morocco, where the French Insep (National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance) signed an agreement with Mohammed VI University to develop a center of excellence and physical performance.
If the Games are a form of apogee, the idea is to succeed in drawing dividends from them in the long term. Both through economic contracts, but also through the influence that results from them, more difficult to quantify but essential. “The United States, China, are indisputable superpowers, France, it seeks to remain so”: for Paris, organizing the Olympic Games thus amounts to confirming its place of choice among the concert of nations, by affirming an undeniable soft power cultural, highlights Olivier Guyottot, lecturer-researcher in strategy and political science at Inseec Grande Ecole. “In Sochi, Russia, or in Beijing, China, it is about saying ‘look how strong we are’. For France, it is less about demonstrating power than referring to our values, our history, our culture,” continues the specialist in state strategy.
If the quantifiable economic benefits often only last three years, “the real asset is the reputational dimension, how we manage to change the reputation of our country through sport” summarizes researcher Jean-Yves Guégan, author of Geopolitics of sport (Bréal, 2022) and co-author with Lukas Aubin of The War of Sport (Tallandier, 2024). This is what Qatar successfully did during the World Cup, and as the specialist notes, once the competition was launched, calls for a boycott were forgotten, only the successful organization counted. “A few years ago, Qatar did not exist on the world stage. The World Cup allowed it to introduce new ideas into people’s minds. Paris 2024 can have a strong impact on the next ten years.”
“Paris 2024 opens a decade for Olympism and for sport
This is evidenced by the London experience, which left its mark in the long term. The image of the Queen of England “jumping” from a helicopter with James Bond successfully combined all the clichés about the country, sprinkling them with a good dose of British humor. This was followed by exemplary Games, where the well-oiled organization never failed and where the British athletes particularly shone with their performances. Fourteen years later, the city is still reaping the dividends in terms of image, not to mention the rehabilitation of entire sections of the city. “London 2012 allowed the city to become the world’s leading tourism capital three times in a row,” recalls Jean-Baptiste Guégan. “Paris already is. Except that Paris, unfortunately, suffers from the security issue, the images left by the yellow vests, the urban riots…” The Games offer a golden opportunity to erase all this negative publicity.
At the heart of this cultural influence is our ability to project images that will remain. “MakingEmily in Paris a reality”, summarises the geopolitics specialist. Among these new images, those, undoubtedly spectacular, of the opening ceremony on the Seine, the first to take place outside a stadium, but also those of the sports competitions in iconic locations in the capital. The athletes on the Seine, the triathlon at Les Invalides, horse riding in the sumptuous setting of Versailles, urban sports on the Place de la Concorde, volleyball under the Eiffel Tower… “We are going to increase tenfold the emotions of sport thanks to French heritage, with a formidable multiplier effect”, adds Samuel Ducroquet.
The fact remains that by hosting these Games a hundred years after the first ones, France’s ambition goes beyond simple sporting and heritage prestige. It is about reconciling the world with Olympism, giving it a new lease of life. “We want to prove to the world that we can hold bold, spectacular Games, but also responsible and united, under a new model,” says the sports ambassador. More inclusive, more sober, less expensive, can this “Olympiad” open a new page, encouraging so-called “Southern” countries to compete again to host them? There is a desire to make exemplary Olympic Games, which can “become a sort of benchmark in this area”, insists Olivier Guyottot. “Paris 2024 opens a decade for the Olympics and for sport, favorable to democracies and in particular to Westerners: Los Angeles 2028, Australia in 2032 or even the Football World Cup in 2026 in the United States, Canada, Mexico and in 2030 Spain, Portugal, Morocco”, notes Jean-Yves Guégan. Whatever the more or less long-term diplomatic ambitions, the fact remains that “as soon as the events begin, we forget everything”, recalls the researcher. Only sporting performances count, capable of projecting the power of a nation for a long time.
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