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In 100 days, Paris will host the most famous sporting jamboree on the planet: the summer Olympic Games.
There will be action across 32 sports watched by millions of visitors, as well as an unprecedented opening ceremony set to take place on the River Seine, which runs through the city’s heart. At least, that is plan A, anyway — Emmanuel Macron, the French president, confirmed an off-river contingency for the first time on Monday.
Excitement has not quite taken hold in Paris yet. Decorations around the city remain discrete for a Games awarded to the French capital in September 2017. The City Hall has been plastered with Olympic regalia, but the focus of messaging has primarily been on practicality — “anticiper les jeux” (anticipate the Games), as posters on the Paris Metro, the city’s subway system, depict it.
The past few years have seen plenty of focus on staging the Games, but there has been much more discussion about the practical impact. Authorities have battled and quarrelled to meet deadlines and targets. There have been fears around security, heightened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Gaza conflict, with the audacious, river-based opening ceremony — set to be the first time a Games has not opened in a stadium — a particular area of concern.
Add in worries about transport disruption and the threats of strike action from unions with public sector workers, including police, demanding pay concessions for the extra work anticipated for the Games, and the build-up has been anything but smooth. Even ‘les bouquinistes’, the booksellers who maintain a 400-year tradition on the banks of the River Seine, erupted in protest at the prospect of temporary removal for the opening ceremony.
Booksellers have lined the Seine for more than four centuries (Mohamad Salaheldin Abdelg Alsayed/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
But now, the focus should turn to what else the Games has to offer before the Olympics begin on July 26 (although the men’s and women’s competitions for soccer and rugby sevens begin on July 24), with the Paralympic Games to follow from August 28 until September 8.
“This is the French edition,” joked Emmanuel Gregoire, the mayor of Paris’ first deputy, when asked about optimism before the Games at a press briefing this month. “At the beginning, we have been talking only about problems — but we feel that the joy is growing.”
The Olympic flame is now ablaze, lit on Tuesday on Mount Olympia in Greece before beginning its journey across 400 towns and cities in 65 regions of the French territories and landing in Marseille on May 8.
“Paris 2024 begins on May 8, that’s kick-off,” said Pierre Rabadan, the deputy mayor in charge of sport, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the Seine.
The first torch runners with the Olympic flame in Olympia on April 16 (Socrates Baltagiannis/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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