As is often the case, the Cassandras were wrong: despite the avalanche of alarmist articles over the past months on security, transport, accommodation or the state of the Seine, the 2024 Paris Olympics will be remembered as a spectacular success, an undeniable popular success and an aesthetic triumph (barring a catastrophe before the closing). But, in the intoxication of French medals and praise from abroad, beware of the opposite excess. A Léon Marchand on the water will not miraculously transform us into a nation capable of competing with the American or Chinese giants. Even the heavyweight Teddy Riner cannot compete with the weight of our public debt.
Alas, history teaches us that the Olympic Games are often nothing more than a truce in the destiny of the host country. Of course, the 1988 edition of Seoul coincided with South Korea’s democratic transition. The 1992 edition of Barcelona propelled the Catalan city into the era of globalization… and overtourism. But there are many counter-examples. In 2012, a major European capital also feared a security fiasco, before boasting “the best Games ever organized”, the rehabilitation of its disadvantaged neighborhoods and an opening ceremony celebrating a multicultural nation, hailed worldwide for its audacity. Four years after the London Olympics, the British voted in favor of Brexit.
Marked by Western protests over Tibet and human rights, the Beijing Games in 2008 represented the twilight of the Chinese regime’s hopes for liberalization and openness. Four years later, Xi Jinping came to power, beginning an ideological return to the strictest Marxism-Leninism. The expensive 2004 Games in Athens were presented as a return to the roots of the Olympics. Four years later, the Greek public debt crisis exploded. Unsurprisingly, the gold medal for disappointed hopes goes to Vladimir Putin: Russia did not even wait for the end of the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 to launch the annexation of Crimea, before attacking Donbass.
“Legacy of pride”
We can also extend this rule of four to another major sporting event, the Football World Cup. Four years after the “black-white-beur France” of 1998, Jean-Marie Le Pen surprisingly reached the second round of the presidential election. Four years after the Moscow final in 2018, which saw Emmanuel Macron appear next to Vladimir Putin at the Luzhniki stadium, Russia invaded Ukraine.
Eager to ride on a united and enthusiastic France, the French president hopes today that these Olympic Games will leave a “legacy of pride”. But the legacy of these competitions rarely goes beyond the sporting framework. We can bet that after this enchanted interlude, France will quickly return to its political turpitudes, to its allergy to heads that stick out as well as to its pessimistic and declinist inclinations. The fact remains that between the panache of an inclusive opening ceremony, the highlighting of a sumptuous heritage and the omnipresence of advertising by a famous luxury group, our country has glimpsed what its comparative advantage could be in an increasingly competitive world: a tourist and sophisticated nation, more at ease when it comes to exporting its universalist values and its republican model than its industrial productions. The France of 2030? Somewhere between Michel Houellebecq, Bernard Arnault and Thomas Jolly.