Could the magic of the Games be working even on the die-hard grumblers that the French are? It’s possible.
Much has been said about how the Paris Olympics were not arousing enthusiasm among the French, due in particular to their costs and the anticipated chaos in Parisian transport.
On the eve of their launch, an IFOP survey reported that they were at best met with indifference among more than a third of them (36%), with more than a quarter (27%) expressing concern and 5% even speaking of anger. On the contrary, only 23% of respondents said they were rather satisfied, and 12% even expressed enthusiasm.
It is not uncommon for the arrival of the Games to raise some protest in the host countries. It is almost a rule, so expensive and disruptive is the mega-sporting event of a few weeks, observe the experts. But what is also common, they continue, is for a reversal of popular mood to occur along the way, when it is understood that the predicted catastrophe has not occurred, that the spirit of celebration begins to percolate in the population and that our local athletes win medals.
This had happened at the last Tokyo Games. Usually so moderate and reserved, the Japanese had nevertheless shown themselves to be very angry about holding the event due, in particular, to the COVID pandemic and its mismanagement by the government. More than 80% of Japanese were still opposed to it a few weeks before the opening of the Games. The tide had nevertheless turned, with this proportion of opponents being only 31% before the end of the Games.
Will the French end up succumbing to this kind of magic of the Games? The polls will tell.
The most recent, which was conducted the day after the opening ceremony, revealed that nearly 80% of French people said they were optimistic about the chances of the Games being a success, and an even higher proportion considered that the ceremony had been “rather” (42%) or “very” (44%) successful.
And that was before there were Olympic competitions on television all day long, before Léon Marchand took the plunge into the pool for the first time and before France climbed to third place in the medal table.
This report was funded with support from the Transat International Journalism Fund-The duty.