The Olympics are teaching the French to cheer again

The Olympic games are doing something very odd to France. Traditionally, the country has embraced jaded critique as a national character trait. Now the hosts of the games, who on July 31st ranked second in the medal table, seem to be shrugging off their studied glumness and reaching for superlatives as if for a bottle of chilled summer rosé. Léon Marchand, the swimming champion, has become “une nouvelle star”. After the spectacular opening ceremony along the Seine on July 26th Le Monde, the bible of the understated Paris intellectual, went full tabloid: “MAGIC!”
This unsettling positivity is not just a capital-city phenomenon. Three-quarters of the French now say they are pleased that the country is hosting the games. As many as 23m people watched the opening ceremony on French television. Fully 86% judged it to be a success. This figure is all the more telling given the way the four-hour extravaganza challenged France’s traditional conception of itself.
A playful, boisterous carnival, the festival along the Seine played with the themes of order and rebellion, formality and disruption, against the backdrop of Paris’s quays and palaces. As darkness fell, and despite heavy rain, the river became a mirror for a whimsically defiant mobile spectacle overseen by Thomas Jolly, a theatre director. Aya Nakamura, a Franco-Malian singer (pictured), dressed head-to-toe in shimmering gold, performed with swaying musicians from the Republican Guard. Dancers attached to poles swung above the 16th-century Pont Neuf. President Emmanuel Macron, profiting from the enthusiasm, posted a widely shared sentiment on X: “This is France!”
Even a controversy that emerged on the religious right was swiftly washed away. After a burlesque scene featuring drag queens on a bridge, Marion Maréchal, a politician from the ultra-Catholic right, denounced a “parody of the Last Supper”. The claim went viral. Church leaders joined in. This was absurd, Mr Jolly explained: the scene was a tribute to a painting of Dionysus, god of wine and festivities. The Olympic organisers apologised for any offence, and the French moved on.
Natives say the city feels different. The metro’s signage has improved. Policemen dispense friendly advice in place of the traditional Parisian snub (or worse).
Even the fact that France has no proper government seems to have been forgotten. Until the games began, political life had become an unimpressive spectacle of fractious squabbling. This was exacerbated by Mr Macron’s decision to call snap parliamentary elections, which ended inconclusively on July 7th with a hung parliament. No political bloc is remotely close to commanding a majority; no majority alliance is close to being forged. Since July 16th Gabriel Attal has acted as a caretaker prime minister, and is likely to do so at least until the end of the games, on August 11th.
The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP), now the biggest bloc, with 193 seats in the 577-seat lower house, thinks it has a solution. After weeks of quarrelling, the alliance of Socialists, Greens, Communists and the hard left finally agreed on a candidate for prime minister: Lucie Castets, the little-known finance director of Paris’s city government, which forecasts that its debt will rise from €7.7bn ($8.3bn) in 2022 to €9.3bn in 2025. Ms Castets has since been doing the media rounds. She promises to lower the pension age and raise €150bn in new taxes by 2027, largely from the rich.
Yet Mr Macron looks in no rush to offer her the job. The constitution states simply that the president names the prime minister; only political precedent suggests that the job should go to the biggest party. Mr Macron still hopes, says an aide, that rival parties will find their way to a majority coalition. This would appear to rule out inviting the NFP, which is 96 seats short of a majority, to govern alone. Yet if his own centrist bloc, which holds 166 seats, were to form a coalition, it would need to join up with both the centre-right Republicans, who hold 47, and the moderate left. Neither link looks imminent.
When the games are over, divisive politics in Paris will doubtless resume. The budget for 2025 is due to go to cabinet in late September, and then to parliament the following month. The longer Mr Macron takes to name a prime minister, the more the left-wing alliance will cry foul and accuse him of meddling in the democratic process. But, for the time being, at least, rudderless France has put politics on hold, and seems all the better for it.
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