Paris’s stunning vision for the Olympics wins a gold medal

THE PARIS games are drawing to a close on a note of ferveur olympique in the French capital. Once sceptical, the French have been won over, both by the performance of their athletes, who won more medals than at any previous Olympics, and the sheer beauty of the capital’s backdrops. 

The sight of BMX freestyle riders in the air above the Place de la Concorde, or triathletes finishing before the golden-domed Invalides, wowed spectators at home and abroad. So when Paris hands over the Olympic flame to Los Angeles, the host in 2028, at the closing ceremony on August 11th the city will transfer both a sporting symbol and a challenge.

Unlike aloof Parisians, sports-mad Californians will need no nudge to get behind their own games. As recently as April, according to a poll, the single most-frequent word used by the French to describe their attitude to the Olympics was “indifference”; only 19% declared themselves “proud”. But once the games got under way, and the medals flowed in, the French went wild. 

They found new heroes, notably Léon Marchand, the 22-year-old swimming champion and five-time medallist. Crowds have broken out into spontaneous renditions of La Marseillaise at any excuse, including the nightly rise into the sky of the Olympic cauldron beneath a golden helium balloon. Parisians who had fled their city, like Londoners in 2012, began to regret it.

What Paris and Los Angeles share, by contrast, is the principle of hosting the games with minimal new build. Fully 95% of the venues used for the Paris Olympics were already in place or temporary. The only new permanent sports facility was the stylish aquatics centre. It was built in the scruffy neighbourhood of Seine-Saint-Denis, and designed for local use afterwards. 

This has helped keep the overall cost of the Paris Olympics to an estimated €9bn ($9.8bn), €2.3bn of which has come from the public purse; the rest has come from ticket sales, TV rights and sponsorship. This is less than the cost of Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, London, Beijing or Athens, the five previous Olympic hosts. 

As Marie Barsacq, director of legacy at the Paris organising committee, put it: “the era of gigantism is over.” In line with this new mood, Los Angeles plans to stage the games without building a single new permanent sports facility.

If the Paris Olympics have shown that the games need not be Pharaonic, they have also demonstrated that it helps to be Napoleonic. The French have used the games to complete ambitious public-transport projects. 

The extension of the driverless Metro line 14 was finished just weeks before the games. So was that of a fast underground link to La Défense, another venue. “The games have enabled us to get there on time,” says Valérie Pécresse, president of the greater Paris region.

Even in centralised France, as Ms Pécresse points out, this has not always been easy, mainly because of blockages in what she calls the country’s “colossal administrative machinery”. What made a difference is that the Paris region (run by the centre-right) and city hall (run by the left) were fully backed by the centrist government and President Emmanuel Macron, who put pressure at all levels to get everything in place. 

Even so, a new fast Paris airport link, challenged in the courts by a local authority, will not be finished until 2027. Los Angeles is scarcely trying. Deterred by cost, the city has already shelved a plan for massive investment in new rail systems.

In another respect, too, France has done what less imperious countries would not dare: closed down the capital’s centre for weeks and transformed it into a giant pedestrian sports arena. A vast stretch of Paris, from the Eiffel Tower to the Place de la Concorde, has been turned over to events in pop-up stands, from fencing and archery to skateboarding and beach volleyball. 

At the price of grumbling by residents and restaurant-owners, this has delivered spectacular scenery. In 2028 Los Angeles may have showbiz and glitz; in 2024 Paris has done historic elegance.

As ever, there have been criticisms: of the lack of air-conditioning (Paris wanted a “green” games); of the food in the athletes’ village (not enough meat, oddly for the French); of the cleanliness of the Seine (which only just passed the health test); of the cost of steak-frites in local brasseries (prices up by as much as 36%, according to an investigation by Le Parisien). 

Barring last-minute incidents, however, when the closing ceremony takes place in the Stade de France, featuring stunts by Tom Cruise in a nod to Hollywood, it will be a moment for the French to feel rightly chuffed. They have managed to pull off un feel-good games, which has lifted the mood at home, and impressed spectators far beyond.