Can Emmanuel Macron and the government use the Olympics to make us forget the current “bad buzz”?

During his wishes, Emmanuel Macron was thinking in particular of the Olympic Games when he spoke of 2024 as a year of “French pride”, but the executive is currently facing several difficulties.

147 days before the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Emmanuel Macron is traveling to Seine-Saint-Denis on Thursday February 29 to inaugurate the Olympic village. A must for the Head of State, returning to the site after attending the launch of the work in October 2021. And a visit which is not only symbolic. It is also an eminently political move which is rather timely given the current difficulties faced by Emmanuel Macon. Ordeals illustrated by its chaotic passage at the Agricultural Show. This is an opportunity for the President to look towards a future that he inevitably promises to be bright, to outline the contours of this “year of French pride”, which he mentioned during his wishes on December 31. In short, with the organization of this gigantic event, the executive is playing big, very big.

This will undoubtedly be a turning point in the five-year term. The end of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, at the beginning of September, will mark the beginning of the end of Macronism. After the European elections of June 9, which promise to be delicate for her, the majority will shift into the second half of Emmanuel Macron’s second and final mandate. With the obsession with succession in mind. Several big names will undoubtedly set their sights on 2027. Once his security mission is accomplished during the Games, Gérald Darmanin will be able to think of the post-Beauvau, Bruno Le Maire, perhaps, the post-Bercy, Gabriel Attal,
no doubt to emancipate himself a little from his guardian. In short, the Games are a way for Emmanuel Macron to succeed in his exit.

Little enthusiasm in public opinion

For the moment, the event does not seem to arouse enthusiasm. No, several controversies have even fueled a real “bad buzz”: the prices of certain entrance tickets considered exorbitant, the traffic in the capital which promises to be hellish, the soaring price of metro tickets, or even the forced relocation of second-hand booksellers, ultimately cancelled. In turn, Anne Hidalgo, Valérie Pécresse and even the head of the organizing committee Tony Estanguet, whose remuneration is the subject of an investigation by the national financial prosecutor’s office, have been implicated to varying degrees. Faced with the announcement of a mass exodus of Parisians, Anne Hidago even begged her constituents to stay. “Don’t leave, that would be stupid!”she implored.

For Emmanuel Macron, there is an urgent need to dispel this ambient pessimism to restore color to the Games, and to the continuation and end of his five-year term.