The Olympic doom everyone predicted never came to Paris

FOR the better part of a year, a lot of Parisians have been planning for the Olympics – not to attend them, but to escape them. Fear of an unliveable city packed with tourists and deprived of basic goods has been matched with greed at the prospect of charging those same tourists insane sums for accommodation on Airbnb. Overtourism, price-gouging and harsh policing would surely make Paris hell.

Luckily for those of us still here, nothing has turned out as expected, rather like the bedbugs meme that went viral but bore little relation to reality.

Paris has rarely seemed less hellish: Security barriers blocking the Seine have been largely dismantled, the rain has stopped, and Paris’ landmarks look incredible, from the Grand Palais’ fencing events to the Pont Alexandre III’s triathlon finish. Friendly cops from different countries are walking the streets, smiling volunteers are everywhere, and the metro has plenty of room to spare. Gold medals galore are spreading joy in a land of pessimists.

This isn’t just the power of sport, or the benefits of good organisation. Despite expectations of 15 million extra visitors for the Olympics, the combination of fleeing Parisians, hesitant tourists, and dramatic unforeseen events such as infrastructure sabotage seem to have made one of the world’s most densely populated cities less packed and more liveable. 

Vehicle traffic has fallen 22 per cent in one week, and the average speed on the Peripherique ring road is up 31 per cent, according to data firm Coyote. This isn’t your average summer wind-down, nor is it urban desolation on the scale of Covid-19. The geography of the Games is diverting tourists from traditional shopping avenues, which may be frustrating for the best-known haunts but good for lesser-travelled neighbourhoods that are hosting events in the name of urban renewal.

For the uber-speculators, it’s been a deservedly rude awakening. Out of the whopping 87,000 accommodation options available online in the Paris region for the Olympics, only about one in 10 will be booked during the entirety of the event, according to AirDNA data cited by newspaper Le Parisien.

Greed is a factor: It’s worth remembering that earlier this year, some high-end, 100-square-metre homes were being put on the market for around 20,000 to 30,000 euros (S$28,793 to S$43,189) per week. Hotels have also cut prices to half their peak rate, having hiked prices some 300 per cent in anticipation. Some trends, such as deflation or tourism fatigue, are too strong even for the greatest show on Earth.

And for the arch-pessimists, this is far from “Le Flop”. Enthusiasm can be heard at the events themselves, or seen at new landmarks such as the silver balloon holding the Olympic flame in the Tuileries gardens. Even the now-infamous opening ceremony appears to have won over the French, despite plenty of online gnashing of teeth – one poll suggests some 85 per cent of people judged it a “success”. 

Obviously, tastes are subjective, especially where naked Greco-Roman gods are concerned. But Paris has historical form when it comes to complaining: The Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 Expo, also generated a lot of outrage at the time among the great and the good who considered it an eyesore. Would anyone say that today?

Sceptics will say none of these good vibes is worth the cost or carbon impact of hosting the Games. Maybe so, especially where the costly clean-up of the Seine is concerned. But Paris surely deserves credit for using pre-existing or temporary constructions for 95 per cent of its Olympic venues and tapping companies such as Bernard Arnault’s LVMH for 96 per cent of the budget. Good vibes (and tax receipts) can also help the economy: Bloomberg Economics reckons French economic growth will pick up in the third quarter.

Given the political battles that await Emmanuel Macron and the French once the athletes go home and Parisians return, with no government in place after recent elections, hell in my view isn’t the Olympic Games – it’s other people.