They were adamant that they wouldn’t go down the same ruinous route as the previous three hosts, Rio, London and Beijing, all of whom saw their initial budgets dwarfed by the final bill. Back in 2017, the Paris organisers set a budget of €6.6 billion (£5.5 billion) for the Olympics. While enthusiasm for the Games has diminished since 2017, the budget has gone in the other direction. The raucous National Assembly – where the left and the right holler and jeer at each other – is representative of the bitter tribalism taking root across the country. How has that worked out, Monsieur Le President? France has never been so divided.
The Olympics was one strand of what he envisioned as a whole-scale transformation of the republic into a start-up nation, a modern, harmonious and prosperous country. Macron was speaking in a wider context, too. ‘I salute this success and the tremendous opportunity that the Games represent to assist in the transformation of our country,’ he declared. No one more than its fresh-faced president Emmanuel Macron. Five years ago, Paris was named the host city for the 2024 Olympics.
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