Paris Olympics organisers celebrated the country being “united” and “happy” during the widely hailed two-week sports extravaganza amid doubts about how long the feel-good mood will last.
“France has shown itself to the world in a very, very good mindset: confident, united, warm, welcoming,” head of the Paris 2024 organising committee Tony Estanguet told reporters on the penultimate day of the Games.
Estanguet repeatedly voiced his “pride” at organising what he had promised would be an iconic Olympics, which have seen record ticket sales and packed fanzones around the country.
“It’s an absolutely incredible collective success. France has made these Games successful and I am extremely proud,” he said.
He added: “We’ve seen a happy France, happy French people, and you shouldn’t underestimate that in terms of the legacy of these Games,” he added.
The Paralympics will start on August 28 and the former triple gold medal-winning canoeist said he was aware the end of the Olympics and the summer holidays would spell a change in atmosphere.
“We will be in a different period, the back-to-work time, the restart of political life,” he said. “We will need to adapt to that.”
French President Emmanuel Macron had called for a “political truce” during the Olympics following inconclusive parliamentary elections that he called on the eve on the Games.
It has been largely respected, but the country has been without a permanent government since July and the country’s bickering political parties remain sharply divided.
Estanguet said the weather had been his biggest cause for concern, while the run-up to the start also saw a global IT outage and an attack on the French railways.
“The weather in the final phase was our main difficulty,” said Estanguet.
Heavy rains washed out the opening ceremony on the River Seine — the first times a Games had begun outside the main stadium — while other events had to be postponed because of storms in the first week.
“I was stressed until the very end of this (opening) ceremony,” Estanguet added, saying many parts had to be changed at the last minute. “I didn’t know how the artists were going to adapt.”
French church leaders and conservatives were left outraged by a scene in the ceremony involving drag queens and lesbian DJ Barbara Butch that appeared to parody Jesus’s Last Supper.
Artistic director Thomas Jolly denied any such intention. He and others involved ended up facing online harassment that led to police complaints.
