The feedback is glowing. At the end of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the results are more than positive, both in terms of the French results and the organization. In an interview with L'Équipe, Emmanuel Macron drew the first lessons from this historic event.
“There is only one loser: the spirit of defeat,” declared the President of the Republic. “All those who did not believe in the Games were wrong, in the organization as in the sport. What moved me, deep down, is the French people's capacity for enthusiasm and emotion in the face of surpassing themselves.”
From the beginning, with the opening ceremony, “a great moment because it was full of audacity, French spirit”, to the end with French records in terms of titles and medals. The French delegation placed 64 times on the podium, including 16 times on the highest step, a record beaten in Atlanta 1996.
“There are lots of technical subjects”
The Olympic Games were “an organizational success,” Emmanuel Macron emphasized, praising the work of the organizing committee, the police and the 45,000 volunteers mobilized. “It is also the success of our athletes, since we finished in the top 5,” added the President of the Republic. He indicated that he would unveil “legacy measures” for the Paris Games on September 14, on the sidelines of the parade of French athletes on the Champs-Élysées.
On the subject of the Olympic cauldron, which many would like to see remain in the capital after the Games, he specifies that he will not be the only decision-maker: “It's a collective. I asked the Ministers of Sports and Culture, the competent services, to examine all this with the city of Paris, because there are lots of technical issues. Everyone is looking to see if it can be kept, for how long, under what conditions… All of this must be looked at and we will decide together. But I think that we should not rule out anything.”
Asked about the opening ceremony and the harassment suffered by several of its participants or organizers, he emphasizes: “That there are disagreements, people who are not happy, that is part of the debate. Afterwards, I do not accept insults, hatred, threats. Never. What I see is that an overwhelming majority of our compatriots loved this ceremony and that it gave a wonderful image of France, of audacity, of conquest, of a great story of what our country is.” He also assumes the choice of Thomas Jolly as artistic director “because we are a living democracy.”
Emmanuel Macron said he was “sure that the public will be there” for the Paralympic Games, from August 28 to September 8. “Sport and culture are legitimate investments, they are not budgets on which we should make savings,” he concluded.
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