Marseille, Lille, Saint-Etienne… On some Olympic sites, the euphoria of the Games has not yet taken hold

In Lille, Marseille or Saint-Etienne, the joy of the Games is spreading unevenly to the Olympic sites located outside the capital.

All eyes are on Paris, but not only. The Olympic Games, which began Saturday morning, have set the capital’s sites ablaze from the very first day, such as the Grand Palais and Paris La Défense Arena. But the 2024 Olympics are also taking place at regional sites, such as Lille (basketball), Lyon (football), Marseille (football and sailing) and Saint-Etienne (football). Here’s a look at this first Olympic weekend in France.

In Marseille, holidays before the Olympics

The first French city to host the flame in May, Marseille had the chance to open the Olympics a little early, on July 24, on the occasion of the entry into the competition of the men’s football team. The daily life of the Phocaean city, accustomed to gatherings at the Vélodrome stadium and the influx of tourists in the summer season, has not really been disrupted. Here and there a few “Paris 2024” markers on key monuments, incongruous inscriptions where sport tends to stir up rivalry with the capital.

But not everyone sees them. “When do the Olympics start?”a motorist told us on Sunday at the entrance to the Marseille Marina where the sailing events have just started. According to the people of Marseille we have met since last week, there are no more people than usual. “It’s even the opposite”whispers a VTC driver. “Perhaps with the context and the last elections, people have been put off”says the driver of a sea shuttle.

While the Olympic atmosphere is not evident in the tourist areas of the city, the first day of the sailing events was sold out. The 12,500 tickets per day put on sale are all gone, assures Paris 2024. The Marina beach, where it was possible to follow the sailing while having your feet in the water, was packed on Sunday. It remains to be seen whether all this was linked to the curiosity effect of the first days. As for the Vélodrome, more than 60,000 spectators were present for France-United States, but there were only 9,000 for the match between the same United States and New Zealand on Saturday. A paltry total.

In Lille, Wembanyama and Team USA basketball superstars

In the North, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, in the suburbs of Lille, is hosting the basketball group stage, before hosting the handball finals. In the centre of Lille, Olympic signs are everywhere, but there are no large gatherings, because everything is happening at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy, twenty minutes away by metro.

Around the enclosure, queues start every day at 8:30 a.m., one hour before the gates open. “We travelled all night from Nice to come and see Victor’s first match at the Olympics”smiled Benoit, with an oversized Wembanyama jersey on his back.

Inside, the arena was divided in two for the occasion, offering 27,180 seats that were packed to the rafters for the first match of the competition. Two events marked the public: the entry into the competition of the Blues on Saturday, then that of “Team USA” on Sunday, with LeBron James and Victor Wembanyama headlining. “It is a bit like my opening ceremony. And even much better. You can’t underestimate the power of the crowd, this will be our sixth man”smiled the Frenchman after the victory against Brazil.

When Olympic does not necessarily rhyme with Lyonnais

“Luckily there is decoration at the base camp.” It’s hard to feel the atmosphere of the Games in Lyon, as Hervé Renard’s Bleues have pointed out during their appearances in front of the press. Place Bellecour, Terreaux, Part-Dieu… Everywhere in the city, the same fight. It’s only at the stadium located in the suburbs, near Décines-Charpieu, that you can find a trace of the Olympic Games, and even then, only on match nights.

There was certainly some nice Iraqi support during the two matches of the selection against Ukraine (2-1) and Argentina (1-3). The presence, also, of nearly 35,000 spectators for the French entry into the competition against Colombia on Thursday (3-2). But it is above all the heat – having forced the French players to postpone their training on Saturday – and the hassles in public transport which have marked the Lyonnais since the start of the football tournaments.

Like the firefighters, local tramway workers have started a strike to demand the payment of an Olympic bonus equal to that received by their counterparts in Paris. Enough to create disruption when it comes to getting to the matches.

In Saint-Etienne, Moroccan fans put on a show

Between the espionage affair surrounding the Canadians and the chaotic end of the game at Geoffroy-Guichard during Morocco-Argentina, the Olympic football tournaments have been talked about in Forez. Especially since the fans of the Atlas Lions invaded Saint-Etienne for each of their first two outings, creating a festive atmosphere in the city, particularly on Place Jean-Jaurès, its epicentre.

As soon as you leave the station, the Olympic rings installed on the forecourt remind you that the Loire is a land of the Games and the inhabitants gather in the bars of the center to watch the events on the dozens of televisions set up. If we could still regret the terrible crowd in a hollow Cauldron for Canada-New Zealand in the women’s (2,674 spectators, the lowest score at the Olympics in twenty years outside the Covid period), the meeting of the Bleues, against these same Canucks, raised the score.