- France is aiming for leadership in Europe.
- Paris promises a different kind of Olympics.
- Macron has both foreign and domestic policy goals for the Games.
The 2024 Paris Olympics are important on many levels, both for France and for President Emmanuel Macron personally, writes Ambassador Clyde Kull in the Postimees.
The Games come at a time when Macron is trying to fill the power vacuum that has emerged in Europe with French leadership. Successfully organised, the Games would raise France’s international profile and shape Macron’s political legacy. They would contribute to Macron’s foreign policy goals, such as Europe’s strategic autonomy and the coverage of the Global South. They could also bolster Macron’s domestic political profile, making him more appealing to the French people.
As for the location of the 2024 Olympics, it is important to note that Paris was chosen as host by default, without a vote.
The French capital was one of the five cities initially announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as a candidate city. However, three of them withdrew one by one: Rome because of financial problems, Budapest and Hamburg because of public opposition.
This left only Paris and Los Angeles as candidates when the IOC announced its decision in September 2017. Fearing the emerging narrative that the difficulties of hosting the Games outweighed the benefits, the IOC broke with convention and announced the next two host cities at the same time – Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028.
The concerns of IOC officials are justified.
Over the past decade, it has become commonplace to see bloated Olympic budgets, photos of abandoned stadiums and reports of forcibly relocated locals, mostly low-wage earners, to make way for Games-related development. The Paris 2024 Olympics will therefore be a major challenge for the IOC.
The organisers promised that these Olympics will be different. According to them, Paris 2024 will end up costing much less than previous events and the source will be mainly private funding. The games will produce half the greenhouse gases of previous Olympics. There will also be no empty venues left behind, as the events will almost exclusively be based on existing or temporary infrastructure. If successful, Paris 2024 could turn the narrative of the Olympic Games into a positive one.
For France, and in particular President Macron, the stakes are even higher.
He has embraced the Games from day one – literally. He is visiting the Olympic and cultural venues that are being built, Paris 2024 is increasingly embedded in his speeches on various topics, and he believes that the Games will reinforce “national optimism” and France’s “soft power”.
No one could have foreseen that 2024 would be an unprecedented strategic opportunity for France. A confluence of events – Brexit, declining US hegemony, Russian aggression and the unpredictability of Donald Trump’s possible re-election – has created a leadership vacuum in Europe. One of Macron’s main foreign policy objectives is to ensure that this vacuum is filled by France, including by taking the lead in seeking strategic autonomy for Europe.
Paris, as a city, will be the leitmotif of the games. The opening ceremony is scheduled to take place on the River Seine, where the national teams will arrive by boat in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators. Temporary competition venues will be set up at famous Paris landmarks. If Paris 2024 is as “magical” as the organisers claim, the games will add symbolic weight to France’s leadership ambitions and to Paris’ image as the central hub of post-Brexit Europe.
The Games also serve Macron’s other ambition: France’s role as a “bridge” between global north and south in a new, multipolar world.
In particular, Macron’s foreign policy has emphasised the green revolution and the reform of the international financial system as opportunities to promote development in the global South. The model that Paris 2024 proposes for hosting the Olympics represents a domestic version of this worldview – a focus on sustainable measures, less on megaprojects and more on infrastructure improvements and investment in lower-income suburbs. Perhaps more importantly for Macron, Paris 2024 must appeal to the French people.
Macron and his foreign policy worldview are under threat from the French nationalist and Eurosceptic far-right, which sees the EU as a constraint on national sovereignty and whose anti-immigration policies are an obstacle to the links between France and the global South.
The rise to power of isolationist foreign policies by the far-right would, in many ways, undo Macron’s work in positioning France as a European leader and bridge to the world, just as it has helped to diminish the influence of the US and the UK. Turning the Paris 2024 Games into a ‘source of collective pride’ would thus serve several political purposes.
The work on the ground, the organisational side of preparing for the Games, does not always go as smoothly as intended.
This is particularly the case when it comes to conveying the messages of what the Games mean to the local population.
On the one hand, the organisers do not want to give the impression that the Games are too disruptive to everyday life. This can lead to local backlash. On the other hand, restrictions should be warned in advance. But this was a long drawn-out process. In fact, it is only now that talk has begun that transport in the city, for example, will be hardcore during the Games (to use the transport minister’s term) and that locals will have to obtain special permits to move around and cross the borders. More than half of Parisians say they plan to leave the city during the Games. Residents are encouraged to work from home if possible.
In organising Paris 2024, it is the support of the wider French public that is more important to Macron than Parisians.
In this respect, the mood is more mixed. 65 percent of French people believe that hosting the Games is a “good thing”, but most French people do not believe that the country is ready to host the Games at the right time.
In the end, how the French feel about the Paris 2024 Games before then may not matter. It is simply a matter of leaving a lasting impression of the Games as a source of national pride.
If Paris 2024 is indeed as ‘magical’ and ‘revolutionary’ as the organisers have promised, this year’s Olympics could symbolise a new era for the Olympics and raise the profile of Macron – and France – in Europe and around the world. If Paris 2024 fails, the damage to France’s image is likely to be short-lived. The same may not be true for Macron.
https://arvamus.postimees.ee/8009580/clyde-kull-macronil-on-pariisi-olumpiamangudega-palju-kaalul
Clyde Kull 