Have the Olympic Games made the French less grumpy and more enthusiastic?

These Olympic Games are revealing to the world another France, one that can stop complaining and even get excited, if we are to believe the foreign press.

Yes, and be careful, it will do good. Many quote Hemingway”Paris is a party“, “France seems to have taken a holiday from itself“, said The countryThe Spanish correspondent in Paris is amused by the fact that even the rain stopped when Teddy Riner and Marie-Jo Pérec lit the cauldron.

The parallel is made with the 1998 World Cup: with a “pessimism that is no longer appropriate”, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany, for whom “This joy even made the right-wing defeatists who had predicted chaos in terms of transport, security and sports results capitulate.“In Poland, the liberal press hails “very feminist games”. New York Times imagine, him, Napoleon, awakened at the Invalides by the clamor of the archery stadium. But the “biggest surprise”, according to the Wall Street Journal, it’s really that “Even the French no longer find any reason to complain.”

Enough to put a nice pressure on the American organizers of the next games. Sophie Pedder, correspondent for The Economist in Paris posted on X: “Los Angeles 2028 you have a problem“with 4 sublime photos of the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Palais, the Concorde and Versailles.

In the end, the main criticisms remained on the opening ceremony. But on the unusual enthusiasm of the French public, the only counterpoint I found was the Greek site Ethnos, owned by the Russian oligarch Ivan Savvidis, close to the Kremlin, which speaks of hooligans, biased judges and the fact that there are too many Eiffel Towers.

Will France become more attractive?

Obviously the “soft power” of sport, the power of influence, the smiles in addition, it works even better. The BBC website estimates that “It’s a good time to spend a vacation in Paris!“On TikTok, this American rugby player Ariana Ramsey can’t believe she got a free pap smear while waiting for her dentist and eye appointments in the village.”It’s the Games that pay, not the French Social Security,” thought it was a good idea to clarify the resigning Minister of Health, Frédéric Valletoux.

This success of global esteem for Paris, there is one in any case who savors it, it is the mayor of Paris. Anne Hidalgo takes her revenge on the skeptics and lets loose, in the newspaper Le World : “Fuck the reactionaries, fuck this extreme right and those who would like to lock us into the war of all against all.“, she says.

Soft power but hard revenge.