I’m back from a trip to the Azores and was excited to get right back to these updates, since SO much happened while I was away, but I was waylaid by Covid (the reports are true! It’s circulating and still nasty!). You’ll have to forgive the absence. But! All the laying around has given me a bit more time to read a zillion articles on the post snap election gridlock and the good and bad of the fast-approaching Olympics. Let’s start with the former.
THE LEFT WON! OR DID IT?
There was incredible jubilation in most of Paris the evening of July 7 when the results of the second round vote in the legislative elections trickled in— all the campaigning had paid off, at least in theory, and voters had blocked the Rassemblement National (the far right party) from a relative and absolute majority. The New Popular Front alliance of left-wing parties won the most seats, followed by Macron’s centrist party. Bardella will have to put his Prime Minister pants away for now.
The joy was fairly short-lived, though, as in-fighting within the New Popular Front ensued as they attempted and failed to reach consensus on a candidate to put forward for Prime Minister for two weeks (they put forward Lucie Castets, a young, publicly unknown civil servant, last night). Meanwhile, Macron keeps claiming there were no clear winners of the vote in a not-so-veiled attempt to deflate the left, and summarily rejected the idea of considering a left coalition candidate when interviewed on France 2 last night. I’m sparing you the insider baseball version of events but the short story is that we’ve got a caretaker government that will carry us through the Olympics. (More on Le Monde in English)
THE GOOD & THE BAD OF THE OLYMPICS
First, an admission: I’m well aware that I’ve been quite cynical about the Olympics in the last year. It’s surprising even to me given how much I enjoyed them as a kid. Then, they were opportunities to bond with my mother as we’d park ourselves on the couch and watch gymnastics and ice skating competitions. We’d analyze the uniforms, marvel at the athletes’ strength and enviable ease, and holler for our favorites. I heard my parents comment on things I had no business caring about at that age, like cost and tensions between nations, but I was mesmerised by the feat of putting together an event of that scale and all the athletes descending on one place together, many from countries I had only read about in my textbooks.
The enthusiasm I’m observing from many Olympics fans remains similarly pure and anchored in a genuine love for sports. As an adult, reporter and non sports-obsessed individual, living not only in one of the most densely populated cities in the world but an Olympics host city, my perspective has shifted. The role of sport, we know, is vital in breaking down social and economic barriers and fostering community and inclusion. But I can’t embrace the athletic component of the mega event nor the message of unity without simultaneously considering the serious economic, ecological, and social implications of hosting. And that’s where the feelings get complicated because the good and bad (with heaps of evidence to prove it) exist in equal measure.
I am outraged by the ongoing displacement of homeless people and migrants from tourist view— far beyond city limits — while also being touched by the stories of athletes who have dreamed for this moment and have overcome adversity of their own, in many instances, to get here. I’m deeply concerned that the country is leveraging the Olympics and the need for security to normalize society-wide AI powered mass surveillance— something my friend, strategist, and researcher Rahaf Harfoush insists is especially worrying when it comes to regulation. “What happens if and when a right wing party gets access to all this data and starts targeting immigrants or people with dark skin? Citizens need to know what is being collected and how its being used to train AI,” she told me.
At the same time, I feel excited to see temporary venues juxtaposed with our city’s most remarkable monuments and to watch our mayor keep her promise and swim in the Seine following a 1.4 billion euro cleanup job. I also want to feel proud that France can demonstrate its capacity to welcome and protect millions of visitors at once for a global mega event and shine a light on its talents, athletic or otherwise.
And I’m happy to see that Paris 2024 organizers put forward ambitious targets to make these Games the most sustainable in history, which I reported on for Condé Nast Traveler.
But should we even be hosting them at all anymore? As I wrote in the piece, whether we can truly talk about sustainability within the framework of the current Olympics format is perhaps the bigger question to ask as millions of travelers fly into a host city from all corners of the globe–the main source of Olympic Games greenhouse gas emissions.
And finally, I feel crushed for residents and small business owners in food, tourism, and retail located in high security grey zones where most of the 44,000 metal barriers and police checkpoints have been set up for the opening ceremony. They have, yet again, been subject to France’s Kafkaesque methods of planning and communication. Some restaurants are reporting an 80% drop in business as they’re penned-in, during a week that would otherwise be buzzing. Clients who don’t understand how to request a Games Pass QR code to enter these restricted areas—or simply don’t want to bother—are cancelling reservations left and right. Much of the city feels eerily lockdown-style quiet. And that’s saying nothing of the nurses and healthcare workers who can’t easily reach their patients for at-home care due to these measures and lack of public readiness.
And for what? To be the first host city in history to pull off an opening ceremony outside of an arena? I have no doubt it will be spectacular and make armchair travelers dream of visiting Paris. But it’s hard not to feel resentful of a spectacle that burdens so many residents, despite being told the endeavor is as much to make us proud as it is to sell the country’s soft power to the rest of the world.
The conclusion I’ve reached is that all of these realities and feelings can be true at once. Addressing the very real, adverse effects of hosting an event of this scale and the colossal sums required to pull it off means that acknowledging that we, as viewers, are aware that there are wiser and more context-appropriate ways to imagine the Olympics of the future. It is something we should be demanding, all the more so since it seems the IOC still hasn’t come to terms with this reality: Just today it was announced that the French Alps would host the 2030 Winter Games.
MORE OLYMPICS READING
The Arnault Olympics? LVMH as Paris 2024’s lead sponsor, valued at $160 million— or one big luxury advertisement. From Lauren Sherman’s excellent Line Sheet vertical at Puck (April 4):
LVMH executives recognize the tremendous opportunity to increase awareness among the 15 million people expected to visit Paris for the Games—not to mention the many millions who watch from home. (In 2022, 2 billion viewers tuned into the Beijing Winter Olympics.) The group has control over virtually all advertising space in the city that is not contracted out long term by rivals like Kering. They own the French television advertising rights, and the Korean television advertising rights. If LVMH wants to be as ubiquitous as P&G, this will do it. That’s good enough reason for Bernard Arnaultand his son Antoine, who brokered the deal with the government, to pitch in so much money.
When the government proposes something, LVMH is inclined to say yes. And vice versa: Vogue World doesn’t happen on the Place Vendôme without LVMH. It’s important to remember that, reflecting the bureaucratic French tendencies, LVMH and the government are enmeshed; one cannot function without the other. LVMH makes the country a lot of money, and in turn, the country allows it to make a lot of money.
The Paris Olympics will be political and that’s a good thing, says the FT’s Simon Kuper.
“It’s surely a definition of democracy that everyone has the right to peaceful free speech. You can ignore that speech, but not silence it. And the notion that sport has nothing to do with politics is hard to defend. That might be true when athletes compete only as individuals. But Olympians represent nations, in nationalist competition, which raises the eminently political question of what those nations are.”
Should athletes be considered civil servants when they compete for their nation? That’s what the IOC is arguing in defense of France upholding a hijab ban for its Olympians. Amnesty International and human rights activists disagree (as do I). Read more on NPR.
And to end on a bright note: I love this entire dispatch from Lauren Collins in the New Yorker about the American who beat Mayor Hidalgo into the water with his covert swim but I especially love that she wove in the detail that a speedo in inelegant French terms is a moule-bite, literally “dick molder.”
+ NAVIGATING PARIS IF YOU’RE IN TOWN FOR THE OLYMPICS
My friend
Coming next week for paid subscribers: a guest essay on sporting culture in France and how the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics may lead to a permanent athletic anchor in local culture.
The JO have exceeded my (low, I admit) expectations. It's all (touch wood for the last few days) gone off splendidly. I agree about the dark side (good piece in The Guardian on that by Rokhaya Diallo) but, overall, the country seems more united in joy and enchantment and pride (Le roi Léon!) than I've ever known it. It feels good after all the angst and strife we've had to live through these past few years and, especially, the past few months.