“I came to tell you that I’m leaving, and your tears won’t change anything.” The voices of Amadou and Mariam to the music of Serge Gainsbourg, for a final salute to the Olympic cauldron. On Sunday evening, the 7.7 million or so viewers who watched the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games did not have the chance to see the immense silver balloon designed by Mathieu Lehanneur and EDF rise one last time into the Paris sky. The particularly capricious weather kept the installation grounded in the Tuileries Garden, while young Aurélie Aubert, boccia gold medalist, seemed to tremble with emotion as she blew out the Olympic flame, and definitively closed the sporting and festive sequence of the last six weeks. A parenthesis that put Paris at the center of the world.
Like a snub, the rain that disrupted the opening ceremony on the Seine on July 26 – and pushed 3,000 artists to offer the entire world an incredible lesson in self-denial and surpassing oneself – abundantly watered the closing concert imagined by director Thomas Jolly. But there again, the torrential rain pouring down on the capital and its region did not prevent the twenty or so electro artists gathered for this last lap from setting the Stade de France and its 60,000 spectators ablaze.
Game over! This Monday, it’s less about hangovers than about the blues. But also about the first elements of assessment. Apart from a historic harvest of titles for the two French delegations – 64 medals including 16 gold for the Olympic athletes and 75 medals for the Paralympic athletes, including 19 gold – what will remain of Paris 2024?
A moment of French pride
“A moment of exceptional communion,” replies LR senator Agnès Canayer, rapporteur of the bill on securing these games. “What particularly struck me was the support of the French. We were coming out of a very tense electoral sequence, during which we were torn apart, and yet, we showed that France had this capacity to form a nation,” she explains. “The Olympic Games also allowed us to put the place of politics into perspective, despite the crisis and budgetary concerns, we were able to organize and successfully carry out a global event.”
Socialist senator Jean-Jacques Lozach, co-rapporteur of a monitoring mission on the preparation of the games, speaks of an “individual and emotional” legacy: “I think the French surprised themselves”. The same enthusiasm is expressed by his colleague Michel Savin (LR), a specialist in sports issues: “We can speak of a perfect success for both sequences, Olympic and Paralympic, both in terms of organisation, spectator management and security.”
After months of questions about a possible saturation of public services, in particular the congestion of public transport, but also about the restrictions on movement in the capital, and of course the terrorist threat, Paris has never seemed as joyful as during this double fortnight. “I think that the concerns were necessary. It was normal for an event of such magnitude to raise questions, but they also allowed all the actors – and God knows there were many – to be mobilized around this collective success,” continues Agnès Canayer.
Concerns that did not scare visitors, since international tourist numbers jumped 13% in the capital during the Olympic period, despite a slow month of July. Revenue generated by foreign visitors is up 8% compared to 2023, according to figures presented by Olivia Grégoire, the resigning Minister Delegate for Business, Tourism and Consumer Affairs. In a study published in May, the Center for Sports Law and Economics is counting on an overall economic impact of 9 billion euros, spread between 2018 and 2032.
A material heritage concentrated in Seine-Saint-Denis
A strong point of the Paris 2024 bid: the reuse of sites used during the games, while the reconversion of Olympic complexes has often been a blind spot in previous Olympics. The Olympic village of Saint-Denis and the media village of Dugny should respectively accommodate 2,800 and 1,500 homes by 2025, as well as schools and daycare centers. The Olympic aquatic center of Saint Denis, opposite the Stade de France, as well as the multipurpose hall and gymnasiums of the Adidas Arena Porte de la Chapelle, will be added to the sports facilities of the department, one of the least equipped in France. Also noteworthy is the renovation of the Maurice Thorez aquatic stadium in Montreuil and the Annette-Kellermann aquatic center in La Courneuve, which were used for Olympic water polo training.
“We had concerns about the future of the Paris Défense Arena, which hosted the swimming events. The pool has been dismantled and it seems that a buyer has already come forward,” points out centrist senator Claude Kern, second rapporteur of the monitoring mission on the preparation of the games. The elected officials are waiting for the parliamentary session to resume their work with “the assessment phase”. Their report should not be made public before the end of the year.
“It is Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest department in metropolitan France, that will mainly benefit from the material legacy of the games. But it will only be useful if we are able to take on the enthusiasm generated around the sporting practice,” emphasizes Michel Savin.
A sporting heritage to support
There is no doubt that the exploits of Teddy Riner, Léon Marchand or Cassandre Beaugrand arouse aspirations among the youngest. “There would be nothing worse than seeing vocations frustrated by refusals to register in clubs, due to lack of staff and, above all, equipment”, continues Michel Savin, who campaigns for “a real Marshall plan” on the renovation and construction of swimming pools. “We are already seeing a drop in the number of licensees. We must give ourselves the means to welcome them”, agrees Senator Jean-Jacques Lozach, who calls for the opening of “sports volunteering conferences”. “In this area, we are going around in circles. The proposals lack imagination”, believes the elected official. “I also think that we must remain vigilant on disabled sports. The very significant efforts that have been made over the last three years in terms of integration and support must be perpetuated to become part of the operating habits of the federations.”
But the future budget, which is shaping up to be one of the most frugal of the Fifth Republic, could quickly dampen these ambitions. The 60 million euros allocated to sport in the 2024 finance law included 51 million in exceptional credits released for the games and which, a priori, no longer have any reason to be renewed in 2025.
“The funding program for the games, which is 1.3 billion over eight years, is due to end in 2026. But beyond this amount, the ceiling letters sent by outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal predict an 11% drop in the sports budget in 2025, which is not really a good omen. This is the biggest drop after that of public development aid,” explains Jean-Jacques Lozach, who is also the rapporteur for the opinion on the credits allocated to sports. “We will have to see which sectors are affected by the drop, and what remains when the resources allocated to the ‘France, a sporting nation’ objective displayed by the head of state arrive,” also warns Claude Kern.
Accessibility of Parisian transport once again at the heart of concerns
In terms of transport network development, Paris 2024 served as an accelerator for the extension of lines 11 and 14, the RER E and Tram 3B, even though the application file was much more ambitious with the extension of line 12 and the opening of the Grand Paris Express. Of the 400 kilometres of cycle paths set up to facilitate the transport of spectators to the Olympic sites, 367 km will be made permanent.
The Paralympic Games have helped to rekindle the debate on the accessibility of the Paris metro. To date, only 29 stations are wheelchair accessible. But on this issue, the Île-de-France region, in charge of the transport network, the City of Paris and the government are passing the buck. According to Valérie Pécresse, the president of the regional council, such a project could reach 20 billion euros, spread over 20 years. A bill that she wants to share with the city hall and the State. At the beginning of September, “a pact for a metro accessible to people with reduced mobility” was signed between the region, the city of Paris and APF France handicap. But at this stage the commitment remains symbolic, without binding measures. “The accessibility of the metro must not remain a dream, discussions must begin”, urges Senator Claude Kern.
An institutional legacy, particularly in terms of security
The only downside to these games was the massive attack on the SNCF network, which wreaked havoc on part of the high-speed lines a few hours before the opening ceremony, affecting 800,000 passengers. “Our concerns were much more focused on the RATP than on the SNCF,” admits Agnès Canayer, also co-rapporteur of a fact-finding mission on securing the event.
However, the smooth running of the parade on the Seine, and beyond the various competitions, also marks the security success of these games. [C’est] “A relief and a form of snub to the commentators who questioned our ability to secure such an event, but also to the terrorists to whom we say, ‘we live and you can’t reach us’,” Laurent Nuñez told the newspaper Le Monde. It was necessary to mobilize 45,000 police officers and gendarmes for this event, as well as 2,500 members of the security forces of foreign countries.
The use of augmented video surveillance, permitted “on an experimental basis” until March 2025, will have sparked much controversy. On this point, Agnès Canayer is impatiently awaiting “the debriefing”. “I hope that we will set a precedent, prove that augmented video surveillance, supervised as it has been by Parliament, is a great tool in the hands of law enforcement, which frees up human resources to focus on the field,” she explains.
The senator also welcomes the unprecedented collaboration between different elite units, including the GIGN, the RAID and the BRI. “We talk a lot about sporting heritage, but there will also be an institutional heritage. I hope that such practices can be reproduced in the future at other major events.”
The remains of the games
What physical trace will the capital retain of its Olympic period? We think of the rings installed on the Eiffel Tower, the “Agitos” of the Paralympic logo on the Arc-de-Triomphe, or the cauldron, which many want to see remain in the Tuileries Garden. Several petitions are already circulating to this effect, one of which has exceeded 14,000 signatures. But keeping the Olympic ball poses many technical and heritage difficulties: installed in a listed site, it was not designed to withstand the winter cold. In addition, its maintenance will require a specific budget.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who has no control over this issue, has already announced that she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower, which will eventually be replaced by a lighter structure for the monument. However, Gustave Eiffel’s descendants have expressed their opposition to this project. For her part, Valérie Pécresse indicated on her social networks that she was ready to welcome the “Agitos” on the facade of the Île-de-France Regional Council, in Saint-Ouen.
“The Eiffel Tower is truly the symbol of France, it would seem out of place, in the long term, to leave the Olympic rings there. Nevertheless, we must find a way to inscribe the history of these games in the Parisian public space”, believes Agnès Canayer who mentions the possibility of a dedicated place. Michel Savin points out that Albertville “has its own Olympic museum”. “It is certain that we must keep a material trace of this episode, but I do not know in what form. In any case, it would be a shame to do without this magnificent Olympic cauldron, which was enormously successful”, concludes Claude Kern.
