Dear readers,
To discover
Paris 2024: the map of Olympic sites
On the occasion of the Olympic Games, I meet with you every Friday to talk about this great popular event which begins on July 26.
Every week, I will offer you my selection of articles published in
Le Figaro
.
Today, sport and politics are one.
Blame it on the excessive media coverage, the exploitation of major sporting events by elected officials... The Paris 2024 Games are no exception to the rule.
If they are a success for France, they will also be to the credit of Emmanuel Macron.
Whether we want it or not.
The Head of State is counting on it to end his two presidential terms in style and thus leave a positive mark in history.
In this respect, he is extremely lucky because no president of the Fifth Republic has been able to benefit from such an opportunity.
Certainly, General de Gaulle had the Winter Games in Grenoble in 1968 with a great harvest of medals and a three-time gold champion in the person of the unforgettable Jean-Claude Killy.
This moment of glory did not prevent French youth from revolting a few months later, in May, and demanding the resignation of the President of the Republic!
Thanks to the Charles de Gaulle Foundation, which has just organized a conference on De Gaulle and sport, we will nevertheless remember that the great Charles, furious at the poor performances of the French at the 1960 Summer Games, had taken some initiatives to relaunch high-level sport in France.
Few remember it because, at that time, sport did not saturate the screens and De Gaulle did not have the reputation of being a great sportsman.
Mitterrand's winter
In 1992, François Mitterrand hosted the Albertville Winter Games.
“The
Olympic Games will offer us the opportunity to boast, throughout our times, France's capacity to show what it is worth, through its youth, through its businesses, and through its elected officials
,” he said.
This will not prevent the left from losing the legislative elections of 1993. And Mitterrand from experiencing a second cohabitation, flanked by Balladur in Matignon.
If the Paris 2024 Games are a sporting fiasco for French athletes, Macron will be reminded that he had set the target at 80 medals.
However, this will have no consequences for its image.
If they are a failure for other reasons, particularly security reasons, the president will exit through the back door.
That’s to say he’s playing big.
Its future in the history books, in all and everything.
See you next week,
Yves Thréard