Bus drivers may need to be taught to be nice, few think the Seine will be swimmable and breakdancing on the Place de la Concorde isn’t for everyone – but two weeks from the opening ceremony, Parisians are starting to look forward to their Games.
“You know what? I think they might actually be quite cool,” said Cécile Bizet, a recruitment consultant, adding that she was particularly excited about “the fencing, under the great glass roof in the Grand Palais. It’ll be magnificent.”
After what the country had been through politics-wise, said Corentin Charbonneau, a retired civil engineer, it would be “a relief to focus on something else. Take a break. Enjoy the sport, and Paris in the summer. It might even do us good.”
The Socialist mayor of the city, Anne Hidalgo, said this week she was “hugely relieved” not to be greeting Olympic delegations alongside a prime minister from the National Rally (RN) after the far-right party, the pre-vote favourite, came third in snap elections.
A four-party left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP), returned the most MPs followed by the centrist camp of the president, Emmanuel Macron, but the result has left France with a hung parliament and no obvious majority to form a government.
Hidalgo said it was “a very good thing” that the outgoing prime minister, Gabriel Attal, was staying on “to take care of day-to-day business during the Games period.” The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, had also done “a great job on security”, she said.
The right-wing president of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, also said it would be better to wait before forming a new government. “We need a transition government for the Games,” she said. “Three billion people are going to be watching us.”
Despite much grumbling over the digital security passes needed to move around a core zone in central Paris including the Tuileries garden, Île de la Cité and Seine riverbanks before and after the opening ceremony, most people who will need them have applied.
The public transport network RATP has said Parisians have also stocked up en masse on metro tickets or subscribed to travel cards to dodge a steep fare increase during the Games: between 20 July and 8 September, tickets will cost €4 rather than €2.15.
The tourism industry is less happy, fearing that French and foreign holidaymakers will avoid the capital before and during the Games because of cost and congestion, and that 15 million visitors due for the Olympics and Paralympics will not fully compensate.
Air France has said it expected turnover this year to be €160-180m lower than in 2023 owing to “significant avoidance behaviour” by international travellers, while the department store Galeries Lafayette predicts its receipts will be down 10%.
Parisians who have decided to stay for all or part of the world’s biggest sporting spectacle, however, seem surprisingly sanguine. “I’m starting to get quite excited, amazingly,” said Fateha, 38, a call centre worker. “It’s once in a lifetime, isn’t it?”
Questions remain. The water quality of the Seine, due to host the triathlon and open water swimming, was reportedly up to scratch “for 11 out of the past 12 days”, city hall said on Friday, adding that it had “no concerns at all” about the events going ahead. Hidalgo has promised to test it personally on 17 July.
The political situation may yet have an impact: the hard-left CGT union this week called for mass protests and possible strikes during the Games to pressure Macron to “respect the results” of the election and allow the NFP to form a government.
“At this stage we don’t plan a strike during the Games,” said its leader, Sophie Binet. “But if Emmanuel Macron continues to throw fuel on the fires he lit …” The more moderate CFDT union also refused to rule out strikes “in certain sectors if social dialogue breaks down”, although it said it did not aim to block the Games.
With about two-thirds of their routes scheduled to be rerouted for the duration of the Games, Paris’s notoriously grumpy bus drivers are being given a crash course in how to be nice to passengers, including tourists and spectators, BFMTV reported.
“The aim is to replace taped announcements with actual words from the driver,” JC Mulier, a standup comedian and corporate trainer, told the station. “We want to give passengers a more positive, personal experience, make their journey more convivial.”
To the fury of city hall, there will also be a trial run for electric air taxis during the Games. A floating platform near Austerlitz station will accommodate the VoloCity aircraft, which will fly in from four airports and airfields around the capital.
Carrying just a single passenger, the air taxis will not be able to operate commercially because they are not yet licensed to do so in the EU, but their operator hopes the 900 flights they will make over the coming months will demonstrate their utility.
David Belliard, a deputy mayor of Paris, was not convinced and has said city hall may appeal against the government’s decision. “The entire council voted against air taxis,” he said. “They’re anti-environment, super expensive, and for the super-rich.”
But the fact that so many of the Games’ events will be taking place in the heart of Paris, with celebrated landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower as their backdrop, seems to have seduced at least some locals – despite the inevitable inconvenience.
On the Place de la Concorde, around the imposing Luxor Obelisk, a temporary 17,000m2 urban park is nearing completion that will host the skateboard, BMX, breakdance and some basketball competitions and 25,000 spectators a day.
The site is one of seven temporary constructions for the Paris Games and gives competitors and spectators alike a view of the Grand Palais, the French parliament, the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.
“It’s really the incarnation of Paris 2024,” Aurélie Merle, the sporting competitions director of the Games, told journalists on a recent visit. “The idea of taking sport out of its traditional venues and putting it in the heart of the city. It’s really worked. It’s going to be magic.”
