Did Catholics demonstrate in Paris after the opening ceremony?

Contrary to what she suggests, a video shared on social networks actually shows an evangelical gathering that took place last May.

Several social media users shared a video on Sunday, July 28, showing, according to them, a gathering in Paris of Catholics unhappy with the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games. In a publication viewed more than 460,000 times, the Réalité Actuelle account describes it as follows: “practicing Catholics” gathered on the Trocadéro square “to celebrate Christ in song following the controversies surrounding the opening ceremony”. So, true or false ?

This video, also posted by billionaire Elon Musk on X, actually dates back to May 25. It was first posted on the Instagram account of Jean-Luc Trachsel, an evangelist who is very active on social networks. We see a gathering organized the same day on the Place du Trocadéro by the Marche pour Jésus Federation, which brings together evangelical Christians, not Catholics, as evidenced by the event’s website. This gathering, which took place before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, therefore has no connection with the discontent of some Catholics regarding the inaugural spectacle of Paris 2024.

The opening ceremony was heavily criticized by the Conference of Bishops of FranceSaturday, for “scenes of derision and mockery of Christianity.” Far-right figures have argued that one of the scenes repeats and blasphemes the imagery of the Last Supper, Christ’s last meal, with the presence of drag queens. “To all Christians around the world watching the opening ceremony and felt insulted by this drag queen parody of the Last Supper, know that it is not France that is speaking, but a left-wing minority ready for any provocation”commented on X the MEP Marion Maréchal. The LR senator Valérie Boyer also reacted on X, denouncing a “vision of our History which (…) which seeks to ridicule Christians”.

The ceremony also provoked reactions abroad. On Instagram, the far-right vice-president of the Italian Council of Ministers, Matteo Salvini, described the ceremony as “sordid” and judged that she had offended “billions of Christians in the world.” On X, Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch far right, has denounced a “double standards of the worst kind”considering that when he “Publishes caricatures of Mohammed, the left cries blasphemy”but that “so mocking Christianity is acceptable”.

On the left, if the reception given in France to this ceremony was generally positive, Jean-Luc Mélenchon nevertheless explained in a blog post that he had not ““did not like the mockery of the Christian Supper”. “I ask: what is the point of risking hurting believers? Even when one is anticlerical!”asked the founder of La France Insoumise.