More than a joy,
the Olympic Games are becoming a nightmare
for Parisians and their organizers.
To them will be added 15 million tourists, who will attend and suffer transportation problems, very expensive accommodation and the probability of restaurants closed because they went on vacation.
Between July 26 and August 11, the international competition will change its face in Paris.
Today the French woke up to the official posters of the Olympic Games.
The Invalides cross has disappeared from the image.
It is replaced by an arrow, an artistic license from its creator.
“A deformation to contemplate the extreme secularism" of the mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who becomes caricature, according to her critics.
“It is their will to make every trace of Christianity disappear from the historical monument,” the devout Christians insist.
The French flag and the Invalides cross are missing.
.
Barely revealed to the public, the Games poster generates controversy.
On social networks, Internet users denounce an “invisibility” of French identity.
“We will notice their desire to erase all signs of Christianity”, “They dared”, “A shame for our country”, can be read on the networks.
“No French flag appears.
The invisibility of our identity is an unacceptable defect.
We must fight relentlessly against Wokism everywhere,” said RN deputy Nicolas Meironnet.
MEP Gilbert Collard points out “the work of the traitors guilty of
the fundamental denial of France”
.
The work, created by designer Ugo Gattoni, is full of details.
“You have to find the pets, find the bearer of the flame, find the disciplines.
There are many things to look for.
“It is an extremely symbolic poster, which tells many things about the Paris 2024 project, starting with Bélem, which will carry the Olympic torch to Marseille,” explained the artist during the presentation of his posters.
Also with the Marseille marina, home of sailing competitions."
Numerous monuments are represented there: “The Banque Populaire de Le Cléac'h, the Eiffel Tower, the Stade de France, all the new sports: break dancing on the roof of the Stade de France, skateboarding, BMX, climbing.
It's the Teahupo'o wave in Tahiti with surfers.
But there is also Stoke Mandeville, the origin of Paralympicism, which is on an island because it is in England.
There are also many monuments, be it the Arc de Triomphe, the Grand Palace, the Concorde, the Trocadéro, the Invalides… It is a pharaonic project,” he continued.
View of the headquarters of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, in Saint-Denis, France.
Photo EFE
The Paris 2024 Organizing Committee clarified that this absence of a cross
is a simple “artist bias
. ”
In an official statement, he adds that the posters “are a cheerful and light artistic interpretation of a reinvented stadium city.
Many elements could be reinterpreted by the artist.
It is a representation that is neither exhaustive nor faithful to reality - the Tahitian wave is in front of the Marseille marina, the Eiffel Tower is pink, the metro passes under the Arc de Triomphe - without it being an object. of politically motivated interpretations.
The designer Ugo Gattoni himself wanted to react to defend his work: “Through my drawings of official posters I do not seek to represent objects or buildings in a conformist way.
I evoke them as they appear to me and without ulterior motives.
“I don't want them to be faithful to the original but rather so that we can imagine at a glance what it is about, at the same time that we project it into a surreal universe,” he said.
Room without air conditioning
Then there are the Olympic rooms in St Denis,
one of the most socially tense places in France.
The buildings lack air conditioning because the mayor is opposed out of environmentalism.
They must sleep two, four or six and with bathrooms for 4. Many participants claim that they do not sleep there.
Paris has increasingly hot summers
, although buildings are mostly not allowed to install air conditioning.
Saudi Arabia asked for a huge tent to be made in Les Invalides for them and their team.
President Emmanuel Macron said yes.
The mayor denied it. Every day there is a new controversy.
Paris could be headed for an Olympic-sized disaster: rats
, bedbugs, blocked roads and a transportation system on the brink
.
The French capital could ruin its games with so many problems.
Paris offers an unbeatable setting for an event of the magnitude of the Olympic Games.
The perfect backdrop is already there.
Promotional videos for Paris 2024 include horses galloping past the fountains of an empty Versailles, breakdancing in the Place de la Concorde, which is devoid of trash, and cyclists riding along the Arc de Triomphe.
However, the real images are different.
The first problem is bed bugs
, which France accuses Vladimir Putin of publicizing.
During the autumn of 2023, it seemed that Paris, and France in general, had been inundated by a veritable plague of mites.
Travelers began wrapping their train seats in trash bags to avoid becoming hosts to these tiny blood-sucking insects.
People were afraid to go to the movies because they had been invaded.
The decontaminators are not enough.
The garbage strike produced unhealthiness.
The rat problem is serious in Paris and has gone viral on TikTok.
The city's rat population was estimated at four million in 2020.
Alphajets of the French Patrol fly over the Eiffel Tower.
Photo EFE
Added to the train strikes are farmers' movements,
who block routes and the Champs-Élysées with tractors
, in protest against regulations, miserable profits, and infinite bureaucracy.
A group called Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) dumped soup on the Mona Lisa in January.
The Louvre, where the painting is on display, increased the price of admission by
5 euros this year
: the first increase in seven years, no doubt strategically planned to take advantage of the influx of tourists.
Earlier this month, even France's most famous monument was on strike.
Eiffel Tower workers, unhappy with the way the building is run, walked out and left it closed for six days in the middle of the school holidays. They believe it is poorly maintained and corroded.
They accuse the mayor of Paris.
For many residents, a big talking point is how the Olympics are making the existing housing crisis even worse.
They evict students to rent it to tourists.
Twelve thousand euros per week
Paris already has one of the highest costs of living in the country: renting a room costs an average of
1,362 euros per month.
During the Games, evacuees may find it impossible to find a place within their budget, as an increasing number of homeowners list their properties on platforms such as Airbnb.
The apartments cost 12,000 euros a week to rent during the Olympics.
Parisians plan to leave during the Games holiday.
Some will rent their houses but many others
will want to be away from the flood of tourists
that will transform the city.
Restaurant owners believe that those who arrive will use “low cost” food and also plan to take vacations.
They are not even enthused by President Emmanuel Macron's promise that he will swim in the Seine River before the opening ceremony.
P.B.