Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Snoop Dogg at the Olympic Games in Paris 2024. Getty Images Tony Estanguet, the organizer of the Paris Olympics 2024, said of the event, "France has shown itself to the world in a very, very good mindset: confident, united, warm, welcoming." It's a mindset that visitors to France don't always feel and that the French don't always believe in, but with this Olympics, France has shown itself to be more tourist-friendly than ever.
The Olympics Have Been A Huge Spectator Sport From a spectator's point of view, the Paris Olympics have been a success, whether on the ground or at a distance, on screens. Outside the arenas and ticketed events, Le Monde reports that 1.3 million people visited a fan zone throughout the games, with many people choosing to participate in athlete's victory laps rather than having a beer in a bar.
One of the biggest fan zones was in the 19th arrondissement at Club France at La Villette , where 25,000 spectators at a time watched athletes compete in their events on the big screen and then celebrated the winners showing off their medals. In total, 290,000 people came to watch the games here amongst the crowds, arriving as early as 10 a.m.
and staying until 2 a.m. every day.
It wasn't just visitors to the capital that went wild for the Olympics—billions tuned in online or through the screens at bars and cafes. In France, a record-breaking 23.4 million people watched the opening ceremony, an 83% audience sh.