Swimmer Florent Manaudou is feeling glum, French lawmakers are despairing over a plummeting sports budget and the Eiffel Tower has lost its Olympic rings.
Two months after the flame went out on the glittering Paris Olympics and Paralympics, the French capital is in the grip of a bout of post-Games blues.
Swimming superstar Leon Marchand, a four-time gold medalist, continues to impress in pools across the globe, but for his teammate Manaudou, the return to everyday life has proved difficult.
Photo: AFP
Manaudou, 33, was the first torch bearer on French soil when the Olympic flame arrived in Marseille in April and won two bronze medals in the pool in Paris — but he wants to move on.
“It’s been very complicated emotionally since the end of the Games,” he said. “Everyone keeps plunging me back in. I don’t blame anyone, it’s completely normal but I want to move forward. I don’t want to be stuck in August 2024 for months and months.”
In the capital, the dismantling of the temporary Olympic venues is almost complete. The Olympic rings have been taken down from the Eiffel Tower and the airborne cauldron in the Tuileries Gardens that proved such a hit has been taken down and is in search of a new home. The grounds of the Palace of Versailles, which required major alterations to host the equestrian events, would not be completely restored until early next year.
Photo: AFP
The lights have gone out at the local organizing committee’s headquarters in Saint-Denis and the body has moved to smaller premises north of Paris. Its president Tony Estanguet remains hard at work, with estimations expected next month as to whether the budget exceeded 4.5 billion euros (US$4.81 billion).
The government has not yet revealed the entire bill for the latest public costs, including bonuses granted to police officers.
On Thursday last week, France’s general budget rapporteur, Charles de Courson, said that 1.9 billion euros had not been budgeted for.
Minister Delegate for the Budget and Public Accounts Laurent Saint-Martin responded that the sum represented additional costs from using staff from the interior and defense ministries.
“Everyone will say ‘it cost more than expected, but given the image we left, it is well worth this excess,’” one former elected official said.
Increased consumption around the Olympics boosted French growth, with the economy expanding 0.4 percent in the July-to-September quarter.
On the other hand, declining funding for sports for next year, against a backdrop of a dip in public finances, has upset almost all stakeholders.
“Barely a month after the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games, what remains of the ‘great sporting nation’?” French lawmaker Jean-Claude Raux said.
“We have the impression that nothing happened,” said Belkhir Belhaddad, copresident of the Olympic monitoring group in the French National Assembly.
Nevertheless, sports clubs’ numbers have risen, particularly in Paris where table tennis, fencing and swimming — three sports in which France won Olympic medals — have all seen a marked increase in interest.
Some Olympic initiatives have remained such as closing the emblematic Pont d’Iena bridge over the Seine to traffic. The bridge, which links the Eiffel Tower to the Palais de Chaillot, is becoming a pedestrian zone.
In a darker reminder of the Games, the pressure group “The Other Side of the Medal” continues to denounce what it calls “the social cleansing” associated with the Olympics, referring to the clearing out of the homeless from Paris.
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