lThe success of the Olympic Games (OG) Paris 2024 owes much to the exceptional settings that the capital offered them. After years marked by attacks, Covid-19, cascading construction sites, the collusion between the impressive opening and closing ceremonies, the bodies of athletes writhing in the air and this backdrop of shiny new monuments instantly restored the image of the city. This Paris on which the Olympic cauldron stood had little relation to the one made for the Games.
The housing of the Olympic village, the Porte de La Chapelle Arena, the Olympic aquatic center, the rehabilitated sports facilities, all these works carried out in record time for the event, were generally out of reach. In general, the images around which the nation seemed to reconcile after the traumatic sequence of the dissolution of the National Assembly were totally disconnected from the city as Parisians experience it daily. Produced by the Olympic Broadcasting Service, the audiovisual arm of the International Olympic Committee, they were deliberately designed as a phantasmagoria: a cross between a Disney fairy tale, a National Geographic documentary and a Louis Vuitton advertisement.
monopoly board
Premium partner of the event, the LVMH group imposed new clauses that led to the insertion, in the first hour of broadcast of the opening ceremony, of a parallel montage of the work of the artisans of the French trunk manufacturer and the colleagues of Notre- Give me. Also part of the negotiation was the production of cases intended to transport the flame and the Olympic medals, identifiable by their checkerboard pattern, of which televisions broadcast close-ups from morning to afternoon.
The city with golden reflections, which amazed the world throughout the summer, is none other than what the giants of luxury and the real estate sector claim to be. The Paris that they configure around the large Monopoly board on which they compete, on the other hand, lacks image. This Paris “financialized”, “socially homogenized”, “Increasingly more artificial”including Hacène Belmessous, in his essay Paris is no longer a party (Les Voix Urbaines, 168 pages, 18 euros), has its origin in the failure of the city’s candidacy for the 2012 Olympic Games and in the desire that arose from it to launch itself, to win the prize, into the great competition global private sector. capital, still does not have a clear representation.
You have 55.94% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
