Spirit of the Games, are you there? Two days before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games, this Friday, it is still difficult to fully grasp the euphoria that would have gripped Parisians. Since July 18 and the establishment of the anti-terrorist protection security perimeter (SILT) around the Seine, severely restricting traffic, there is anger in the air.
Deserted restaurants in the gray zone, closed metro stations, lost tourists, stranded local residents... While waiting for the restrictions to be lifted, Friday at 1 p.m., Paris looks more like a confined capital than a city ready to burst into flames for these Games .
It’s an inconvenience, we knew that the week would be a little hard but it ends on Saturday,” conceded the mayor (PS) of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, this Wednesday, during a meeting with several media , including “Le Parisien”. Good faith traders tell me that they will make up for it after the ceremony.
Will the Parisians end up going into Olympic mode? “The opening ceremony will bring the magic of the Games to life,” promises Anne Hidalgo, who calls for people not to “let themselves be intimidated by the critics”.
Two days before this event with global impact, the one who describes herself as a “happy mayor” ensures that she will approach this crucial deadline calmly. “I don’t have stage fright, I can’t wait,” she assures us. Everything we have experienced in terms of bashing, controversies, headwinds, all of that is reversed at a given moment. The whole world will see what Paris is and will say good things about Paris.
Céline Dion is, it’s true, an ideal candidate for this evening. “She made the French-speaking world shine, recorded À Paris immortalized by Yves Montand to defend our candidacy in 2012 and sang The Power of The Dream at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996,” underlines Laure Hestin.
Coming out of the Paris screening of the documentary film on June 18, the Red Heads were more cautious. “Céline recorded a message of encouragement for the Canadian Olympic team but to imagine that she will make her comeback in four weeks…” , Vanessa Phoenix confided to us.
