Paris, uncharacteristically giddy, bids au revoir to the Olympics
The city’s residents are unwilling to let go of the magic, but are hopeful that the legacy of the Games will live on
THERE were French firemen flipping like acrobats, a musician playing a piano that hung vertically in the air, and Olympic athletes overwhelming the stage and forming a mosh pit around French electro-pop band Phoenix.
The Paris Olympics ended much as they began, with a raucous spectacle before a joyous crowd, a generous supply of strobe lights, smoke and fireworks. And then actor Tom Cruise rappelled off the stadium roof to collect the Olympic flag from gymnast Simone Biles and carry it off on his motorcycle, a la Top Gun and Mission: Impossible to Los Angeles, where the next Summer Olympics are set to take place in 2028.
“Together, we have experienced the Games like nothing we have ever lived before,” said Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris Olympics organising committee, adding that of all the records broken, among them was one for marriage proposals. “From one day to the next, time stood still, and a whole country got goosebumps.”
As Paris bids au revoir to the Olympic Games, many are reluctant to let go of its magic: of the adrenaline-fuelled excitement, of the party free of political debate, of the sense of time deliciously suspended, like the glowing Olympic cauldron that has hovered wistfully over the city every night.
From the beginning, the promise was that the Games would offer more than a hedonistic 17-day escape. The Olympics would be green, low-budget and offer lasting improvements to the lives of citizens – particularly in the poor suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis, which hosted dozens of events, the athletes’ village and Sunday’s closing ceremony.
The final accounting on all fronts will take months, if not years. But already, perhaps gripped by the euphoria of the Games, many erstwhile critics admit to already seeing improvements. The famous French cynicism has given way to an unusual optimism.
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“I’m so happy to see this,” said Suzie Raveleau, 34, who joined the crowd lining the bank along the Seine one morning this week to witness something she never thought she’d see in her lifetime: swimmers splashing in the water below.
“Everyone thought it was not possible, right up till two weeks ago,” she said.
When asked if she would get into the murky brown water herself next summer, her answer was swift: “Yes. I’d love to. I love swimming.”
Cleaning the Seine enough to permit Olympic swimming events will be the biggest, and potentially most lasting, legacy of the Games. The gargantuan engineering project and sensitive human relations job cost US$1.5 billion, an investment that few things but an Olympics could inspire.
Cleaning the Seine was the most symbolic part of Paris’ promise to massively green the Games, cutting carbon emissions and plastic use in half from past events.
The legacy of some of those decisions are already paying results. All the Olympic sites were connected to the country’s electrical grid, including stadiums that traditionally run off highly-polluting diesel generators, and the government has promised to help finance similar work for 300 other stadiums across the country, said Georgina Grenon, who led Paris 2024’s environmental efforts.
Almost 160 km of bike lanes were created, connecting Olympic sites across the city and the suburbs, as well as many new bike parking spaces – 10,000 of which will remain.
“I expected it to be a catastrophe,” said Alexia Côte, 27, a medical resident who biked to the city’s most packed fan zone, where Parisians roared themselves hoarse cheering for swimming sensation Léon Marchand. “Cycling in Paris right now is fantastic.”
While visitors focused on the beauty of Olympic sites set in Instagram-perfect Paris, the most lasting benefits of the Games will be felt by Seine-Saint-Denis, the sprawling and less photogenic suburb that is synonymous in France with poverty, immigration and crime.
One of only two permanent sports buildings erected for the Games rises here – the gorgeous aquatic centre, where divers twisted elegantly from towers and springboards into the water. Next year, it is scheduled to open as a community centre.
The athletes’ village was also built here. Once the athletes leave, its 40 buildings will become home to some 6,000 people, as many as one-quarter in social housing units.
Over the past two weeks, Seine-Saint-Denis has buzzed with the same Olympic enthusiasm as the capital, its packed fan zones drawing locals and tourists alike.
“It feels like we’re really in France, you know?” said Mounia Ben Keddache, who had brought her two young daughters to a park where kids scampered up a climbing wall, played table tennis and tried on boxing gloves to wallop an inflatable punching bag. “Before, it did not feel like that.”
Many locals spoke glowingly about how clean their streets suddenly were, how friendly the police were and how the officers’ increased presence had driven out drug dealers and pickpockets, making them feel safer. But the party was ending, the athletes waving goodbye and the tourists packing dirty laundry into their suitcases and heading home.
A vision of Billie Eilish hauntingly singing “don’t want to say goodbye” from Long Beach, California, in a pretaped segment offered a taste of the hangover that was to come. What would remain?
The answer, for many French, was uncharacteristically optimistic.
“There is going to be a legacy,” said Mohamed Chebli, 38, having a smoke break outside his pizza joint near the new Pleyel subway station. “It’s a good start.”
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