2024-08-14 18:33:14
French President Emmanuel Macron is known for his enthusiastic embrace of sports stars, as footballer Kylian Mbappe can attest. Macron walked onto the pitch, somewhat awkwardly hugged Mbappe to his chest and stroked his head to console him after the defeat to Argentina at the last World Cup. But, The Guardian continues, at the Paris Olympics, Macron’s sensitive approach to the country’s athletes surpassed anything that had come before.
At the edge of the judo ring, he hugged French gold medalist Teddy Reiner, a beloved sports star in his country. He gave judo bronze medalist Romane Dico a particularly long hug, ruffling her hair several times and then wiping tears from her cheeks with his thumbs after the match. At the Stade de France, after France’s men’s rugby team won its first gold, he squeezed midfielder Antoine Dupont’s face hard, thanking him for his Olympic success. Poolside, he grabbed swimmer Leon Marchand’s hand after he won the gold medal.
Political opponents have bristled at what they have called the president’s “awkward” presence at carefully selected triumphal events for the national team. But Macron knows the importance of tapping into the feel-good factor in France, The Guardian points out. He was quick to draw comparisons between the success of the Paris Games and the mood in 1998 after France won the men’s World Cup, when then-President Jacques Chirac’s popularity soared.
So far, Macron’s rise in popularity appears modest – an Elabe poll conducted by Les Echos magazine on August 1 found that 27% of French people trust him to effectively handle the country’s problems, up two points from his rating in early July.
But when the closing ceremony ends on Sunday evening, Macron will be plunged back into the difficulties of domestic politics, The Guardian predicts.
Weeks before the Games, Macron risked calling early parliamentary elections after the far right thrashed his centrist faction in the European elections. The first round of parliamentary elections saw a sharp rise in the far right, raising fears that Marine Le Pen’s party could take power before the Olympics.
But in the second round, the centre and left coalitions united against the far right. Large-scale tactical voting by French voters resulted in the left alliance winning the most seats, but falling short of a working majority in parliament. Macron is now under pressure to name a new prime minister before the opening ceremony of the Paralympics on August 28, but there is no indication yet which party he or she might belong to.
Macron has suspended domestic politics for the duration of the Games – he called it an “Olympic Truce” – and is relying on a caretaker government that has already resigned.
The president did not stay in Paris for the entire event: he went to the presidential summer residence on the Mediterranean. But he flew back to celebrate one triumphant moment: Friday, August 2, now known in France as Gold Medal Friday. His plane landed near Paris in the afternoon, and he greeted the French equestrians, then went to the beach volleyball competitions, and so on.
When Macron announced this weekend that France would parade French athletes down the Champs-Elysees on September 14 and then invite them to a reception at the Elysee Palace where he could thank them in person, it was clear he was intent on bringing sport to the forefront beyond the Paralympics.
What political capital Macron can make from the Olympics remains to be seen, The Guardian notes. Before the Games, public opinion was marked by pessimism, anxiety and confusion about national politics, and incomprehension, particularly on the left, about why Macron suddenly called an early election and then ignored the results, failing to appoint a new government in time for the event.
Sporting euphoria does not always have a lasting impact on French politics, as Macron discovered in 2018, a year after his first election victory when France won the men’s World Cup, The Guardian reports. A few months later, yellow vest protests against a fuel tax led to the biggest anti-government demonstrations in years.
It remains to be seen who will benefit most politically from hosting the Games. Paris’s bid was largely driven by the left, with local left-wing leaders – including the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and the mayors of nearby towns like Saint-Denis and Saint-Ouen – at the forefront. But Valérie Pécresse, the right-wing leader of Ile-de-France, the region in which Paris is located, also played a major role, alongside Macron’s centrists.
Macron tried to suggest that this showed how French politicians from different parties could work together. But given the deep divisions in the new parliament and the difficult fight to pass a budget in the autumn, support for the Olympics is unlikely to be enough to heal political fissures in the long term.