It’s one of those mornings when the colour of the sky and the news force us to hide under the duvet again. Scheduled for 7:30 p.m. this Friday, July 26, “CER 1” – the code name for the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games – promises to be under the worst auspices.
For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, the party escapes the stadium to embark 8,700 of the best athletes on the planet on a six-kilometer river parade along the Seine, punctuated – on its banks – by a spectacle announced as “the greatest show on earth” by its director, Thomas Jolly. But low, dense clouds await the departure to bathe the 85 ships and the 326,000 spectators expected on the docks, under the mocking gaze of a billion viewers.
The legendary Olympic spirit does not even preside over the team sporting events, which began in certain locations two days ago for logistical reasons. In Saint-Etienne, on July 24, at the opening of the men’s football tournament, Morocco beat Argentina (2-1) at the end of a four-hour match, interrupted by clashes between fans and finished in an empty stadium. And at the Stade de France, the rugby sevens Blues, who drew (12-12) against the United States, won weakly (19-12) against Uruguay, lost (12-19) against Fiji and achieved a success against Argentina (26-14) in the quarter-finals are difficult to convince.
But there is much more serious going on this summer weekend, when the last spectators of the Games were brought to the capital. While the capacity of French transport to absorb exceptional flows – linked to the holidays and the Olympic Games – has been in question for months, the SNCF network was, overnight, the target of a coordinated attack on an unprecedented scale that has plunged France into anguish.
“How could I know if this ceremony would be popular?”
Thousands of cables transmitting safety information to drivers or controlling switching motors were deliberately set on fire between 3 and 5 a.m. The three high-speed lines, Atlantic, East and North, are at a standstill; on the South-East line, the attack was thwarted at the last minute by SNCF agents. Chaos reigns in the stations, 800,000 passengers are affected. “It is part of France and it is the French that we are attacking”bursts into the director general of the railway company, Jean-Pierre Farandou, criticizing the action of“a bunch of crazy, irresponsible people”.
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