PARIS: The concept had been derided as overly ambitious and the location criticized as a prime security risk. But after years of preparation, France could Saturday breathe a sigh of relief—it had pulled off the Olympic opening ceremony for the 2024 Paris Games. Opting for a ceremony on the waters of the River Seine rather than the standard option of a stadium was a theatrical gesture typical of President Emmanuel Macron but which brought considerable risks.

The day was also far from ideal. It began with news of three attacks on signal infrastructure on the French railway network which will disrupt travel for the next days and raises the prospect of a coordinated bid by so far unknown individuals to upset the Games. Meanwhile the weather conspired against organizers and spectators, with an unseasonable deluge drenching performers, athletes and onlookers protected by nothing more than plastic ponchos.

But the show went on. It lasted a marathon four hours, reaching a crescendo with a spectacular climax as the Olympic flame soared into the sky aboard a cauldron tethered to a balloon and Celine Dion serenaded Paris with an Edith Piaf song from the Eiffel Tower. The eclectic show put on by director Thomas Jolly was not to everyone’s taste—the Times of London called it “surreal” and a “damp squib” but no-one could doubt its originality and daring.

And above all the mass event had passed off safely without incident. Parisians and visitors will now again be able to enjoy most of the city without brandishing QR codes to get through police barriers put up for the event that had put much of the riverside embankment into security lockdown over the last days. “With sabotage of railway installations in the morning and pouring rain in the evening, the opening day of the Olympics was chaotic but ended with a grandiose ceremony which broke all the rules,” daily Liberation wrote on the front page of its Saturday edition.

‘Creative genius’

Images of police snipers deployed on rooves provided a stark reminder of the constant security threat faced by France which has been hit by a spate of attacks by Islamist extremists since 2015. The ceremony also marked a boost for Macron after two turbulent months that saw him call snap parliamentary election that at one point raised the prospect of the far-right winning and forming a new government.

That did not materialize but the country remains in political paralysis after the polls and the president generally seen as a weakened figure with three years of his mandate to run. “Thanks to Thomas Jolly and his creative genius for this grandiose ceremony. Thank you to the artists for this unique and magical moment. Thank you to the police and emergency services, agents and volunteers,” Macron wrote in an unusually triumphant post on X.

“Thank you to everyone who believed in it. We’ll still be talking about in 100 years! We did it!” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin added: “We did it! After four years of intense work to prepare for the world’s biggest sport event, we have never been prouder of our security forces.” Extreme-right MEP Marion Marechal harrumphed on X that she was left to “desperately seek to celebrate the values of sport and the beauty of France in the midst of such crude woke propaganda.”

‘Can’t mess up’

Some spectators were frustrated by the rain and crowds obscuring the view but Jolly’s concept appeared focused above all on the millions watching worldwide on TV at home. It also skillfully played on themes of French culture and history but with a modern twist and a plethora of in-jokes for those who wanted to find them. Jolly also celebrated modern France’s diversity, highlighting artists of immigrant origin. “The opening ceremony is really the moment when you can’t mess up. It’s a successful gamble,” communications specialist Philippe Moreau Chevrolet told AFP.

Climate protest

Meanwhile, French police on Saturday blocked climate activists from holding a demonstration in central Paris on the first official day of the Olympic Games. Protesters from Extinction Rebellion (XR), once notorious for shutting down bridges over the Thames river in London, had planned to occupy the Pont des Arts bridge over the Seine, which had hosted the Games’ opening ceremony only hours earlier. Security forces are on high alert nationwide after saboteurs early Friday disrupted train travel throughout France.

The stint on the bridge, which organizers previously said would be “more visible than disruptive”, was called off after police kettled a group of journalists preparing to cover the protest. “The French government has deployed great resources to block our special Olympic action,” Extinction Rebellion France said in a statement on X. “Our democracy burns and we are watching the flame of Paris 2024.”

Activists are calling for more participative democracy and the creation of a citizen assembly to design a new climate-focused constitution for France, which finds itself in a political impasse following elections earlier this month. “We need a new model for society, which has to be fair and democratically accepted. We want to put citizens back at the heart of the political project that we want to see,” said Sandro, an XR activist who didn’t want to give his full name. — AFP