While the opening of the Paris Games on the Seine has caused a lot of ink to flow, the foreign press has been less forthcoming about the closing ceremony on Sunday, August 11. For one reason, perhaps: unlike the parade on July 26, no moment has really been a pretext for controversy. A spectacle, so to speak, “sober and ordinary”, summarizes the Italian weekly The Espresso. In London, Tea Times admits to having preferred the ceremony under the rain of Lady Gaga, Aya Nakamura, and Céline Dion, to that under the clear sky of the group Air, Angèle and Yseult.
In Belgium, The evening is more abrasive, listing the criticisms of Internet users: “Very disappointing”, “abysmally boring”, “deadly” even for the most severe commentators. More diligent, their colleagues from Free Belgium hail “a magical finale”, not a little proud to have on the bill a “Belgian surprise”: the singer Angèle who lent her voice to Kavinsky’s flagship title – Nightcallaccompanied by the group pop rock French characteristic of everything that represents the “French Touch”, Phoenix.
Happy days, difficult tomorrows
Because yes, the “golden parenthesis”, according to the now established formula, was closed with a closing ceremony “filled with visual effects and diverse music,” headlines the Spanish daily The Worldstill groggy by Zaho de Sagazan rolling the “r”s to Edith Piaf in the Tuileries Gardens, and paving the way for Léon Marchand, renamed “Little Prince” by Emmanuel Macron. In Switzerland, The Time does not lack praise, returning in its columns to “the summer when France gave the world a lesson in Olympism”.
The Marseillaise sung “in chorus by the 70,000 spectators” at the Stade de France also moved the editorial staff of Corriere della Sera. A version by Victor le Masne’s orchestra, “softer, more emotional”, and “far from the martial and aggressive anthem of 1792”, notes their Spanish colleagues fromThe Country. A suspended moment, like Alain Roche’s piano which made “The Hymn of Apollo” resonate in the Stade de France, giving rise to a “hint of nostalgia” detected by our colleagues at Wall Street Journal who warn: “From Monday morning – hangover or not – the party is over.”
In other words, the time has come to “return to reality”. That of French political time – “chaotic” recalls the American daily – stopped in favor of an Olympic truce called for by the tenant of the Elysée. But also, the reality of conflicts: at the gates of Europe, in the Middle East, as noted by the Corriere della Sera who nevertheless welcomes some records broken on the occasion of these Olympic Games: “record of tickets sold, medals for Italy, for France and also for Europe”. But the “final assessment on all these points will take months, even years”, warns the New York Times.
A ceremony looking towards 2028
A “closing” ceremony, certainly. But which also constitutes “the beginning of something”, positive The Guardian. Because these three hours of show had the air of a handover ceremony, turned towards the future. Near: that of the Paralympics which promise to make the City of Lights vibrate again for ten days starting on August 28. Also more distant, that of the 34th Olympiad which will set the city of Los Angeles ablaze in 2028, and which, all evening, perfumed the Stade de France. By the interpretation of the famous “My Way” by Frank Sinatra by the singer Yseult. But also, by the abseiling descent of Tom Cruise.
A moment “not as spectacular as some of the stunts he has performed during his career” he quipped. The Times. But what does it matter, qualifies the British daily. “Cruise left on his motorbike with the Olympic flag, to the sound of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, before crossing the Atlantic and parachuting into Los Angeles” in a pre-recorded video, broadcast under the watchful eye of Karen Bass, the mayor of the “Big Orange” came from California for the occasion. In short, from these two weeks of excitement, one question remains unanswered, raised by the Los Angeles Times himself: “How can the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 do better?”