PARIS — Paris, city of ideas, romance, ambition, renewal, hope, light, of course, and, for the third time, the Olympic Games . What could be more va-va-voom than a parade of athletes on the Seine? The competitors delivered to the opening ceremony by boat, disembarking at the entrance to the Trocadero Gardens across the Pont d’Lena from the Eiffel Tower. TakeThatWorld could be the new what3words for Paris, as brazen a dose of self-absorption as you could ever wish to see.
They might also have lined the Champs-Elysees with paintings by Monet and Cezanne, representations of Victor Hugo and Honore de Balzac, photos of Mr and Mrs 1960s Alain Delon and Brigitte Bardot, pictures of Zinedine Zidane and Suzanne Lenglen and any other emblems of French cultural life down the ages that tickled the fancy of Emmanuel Macron , a president very much at the centre of his own Belle Epoque. Actually the show opened with an oh-so stylish video featuring Zizou carrying the Olympic torch through Paris before passing the flame to a small group of children, who emerged by some quirk of design upon the Seine to light up the bridge at Austerlitz and set the first Olympic barge on its way. Read Next Inside the Paris 2024 Olympic Village - where 300 Team GB stars are staying The Olympics have always been a shameless propaganda tool for hosts, hijacked by bombasts and nation builders.
Sport for all? Depends on your pocket. Tickets for the opening ceremony were changing hands for the best part of 3,00.