Macron aims to sidestep political concerns and regain prestige with the Paris Olympics

Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — Emmanuel Macron has pledged to make France shine during the Olympics. Weaker than ever at home after recent elections, the French president hopes the Paris Games also will help his own star glitter again.

The Olympics are the best way to convince the world to “choose France,” Macron said this week, trotting out a motto geared toward boosting foreign investment in the country. “It will promote our landscapes, our facilities, our savoir-faire as well, our gastronomy.”

Macron’s decision last month to call early legislative elections plunged France into a political turmoil. The vote left the National Assembly, the influential lower house of parliament, with no dominant political bloc for the first time in modern France.

The French president said ministers from his centrist alliance would keep handling the government’s work in a caretaker role at least until the end of the Olympics to avoid creating “disorder” when the world has its eyes on France.

On Thursday, Macron plans to have lunch with about 40 foreign CEOs of some of the world’s biggest companies, including Samsung, Tesla and Coca-Cola, aiming to reassure them about the political situation in France, his office said.

But that’s not what he wants to talk about when he welcomes over 110 heads of state and government Friday for the Olympics’ grandiose opening ceremony.

The Elysee Palace said Macron will express “the ambition of showcasing the entire France, its natural and cultural heritage, its art de vivre and its top-class athletes, to an audience of over 4 billion television viewers, including over 1 billion for the opening ceremony alone.”

In addition, Macron and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach have championed a summit meant to encourage world leaders and international organizations to support sports-related initiatives in areas like education, health, equality, inclusion and sustainable development.

The Sport for Sustainable Development summit was to be held Thursday near the Louvre Museum and include 50 heads of state and government.

Macron, who has highlighted the sports he has played over the years — famously boxing as well as tennis — said welcoming the Olympics “was just a dream” when he first got elected in May 2017. Just four months later, Paris nabbed the Games.

Macron’s aides said he personally was involved in preparations, spending hours in meetings and making almost 70 trips across France to encourage local sports initiatives or cities to host Olympic competitions over the past seven years.

When launching the 200-day countdown for the Games, Macron urged French nationals to work out 30 minutes a day, posting a video on his social media with him looking sweaty and in sportswear next to a punching bag.

He also got involved in setting up the opening ceremony along the River Seine — even if he refused to disclose details to keep the “surprise.” He backed the idea because he wanted France to see it was important to “dare changing the rules” of an event typically held in a stadium, one of Macron’s aides said.

The Elysee official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the French presidency’s customary practices.

Macron said the opening ceremony will show the values France brought to the world, with a parade of athletes on boats passing near the Bastille plaza, where the French Revolution was born in 1789, to the Trocadero district, where the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

Some political rivals criticized Macron’s focus on the Games, seeing it as an attempt to divert attention from voters and serve his own interests. Members of a leftist coalition have demanded the immediate right to form a government because they won the most seats at the National Assembly.

“He wants an Olympic truce … yet we’re not tired at all, we’re able to do two things at the same time, like watching the final of the 400-meter hurdles and form a government,” said Marine Tondelier, secretary general of the Green party.

Macron touts that the Paris Olympics are meant to be the greenest Games ever, with an ambitious target of halving their overall carbon footprint compared with the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Games.

That in part was tied to using existing or temporary venues instead of building new ones. Two new facilities built in Paris’ disadvantaged northern suburbs were deemed unavoidable: The Olympic Village, to house athletes and later become housing and office space, and the aquatics center.

Some environmental advocates say the Paris Games should have gone further in reducing emissions and finding more ways to make sustainability a central fan experience. Some have also questioned the climate track record of big sponsors.

“The reality is that the organization of the Olympic Games is leading to massive overbuilding on our natural and urban spaces, sacrificing biodiversity and the well-being of local residents,” activist climate group Extinction Rebellion said in a statement.

A social justice group also planned protests and has warned of the negative impact of the Games on the Paris area’s most marginalized people.

With projected spending of 8.9 billion euros ($9.6 billion), the Games should cost considerably less than Tokyo’s $15.4 billion on the pandemic-delayed 2021 Olympics.

When it comes to sports, Macron hopes French people will turn their focus on the athletes’ achievements, rather than political concerns.

“It’s a moment of shared fun that will be good for the country. We’re going to be enthusiastic and united again. The country needs it,” he said Tuesday.

One promise remains that Macron didn’t meet yet: swimming in the Seine that was cleaned up for the Olympics.

He repeated this week he’ll go, but most likely after the Games — after all, Macron has still three years until the end of his term.

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