Fear And Loathing In Paris 2024
Why That Opening Ceremony Was Worse Than You Think
I sensed something was off when Zidane bought his Metro ticket. Like many Brits I tuned into the Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics 2024 after work. I was ostensibly watching the event on the telly with my mother but I was also changing out of my uniform, eating my supper, making myself cups of tea and chatting about my day.
In an enclosed theatre there is a compact with the audience to entertain and be entertained in a sacred space. Performers command a particular kind of focused group attention. When you take the show outside and broadcast it to billions that changes things. Many people are half-watching; others are watching intently by themselves. And some are down the pub.
Danny Boyle, mastermind of the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, began in theatre but by the time he was chosen to channel British national pride to the rest of the world he’d chalked up many successess in film and televsision. Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of Paris 2024, is from an almost exclusively theatrical background.
It showed.
We started with a framing story which was reasonable enough, except that it featured — well, a snarl up. The torch carrier was in the wrong place. There was some desperate mugging (oh dear, thought the British, the French don’t do comedy well) and then Zidane set off across Paris in a cinematic parody of stalled traffic and outdoor diners being knocked from their chairs.
Not cool, Zidane. It isn’t nice to knock innocent bystanders off their chairs.
So less than five minutes into the torch relay and we’d already had Gallic Incompetence followed by Bad Behaviour. But then Zidane bought his train ticket and things went really off the rails. Jolly is on record as saying he was “perplexed” by how the Opening Ceremony was received. But his team’s lack of awareness of any worlds or value systems beyond their own, the ways their effort might (or might not) be serving the larger Republique, was just jaw-dropping.
ZZ bought a ticket. Don’t you see what’s wrong with that? He bought a ticket. The London Underground is almost cashless now. It whizzes people around the city in an electronic environment. Whatever this story was going to be about, it wasn’t about France as a country on the leading technological edge.
Which was tough on the people who work for Airbus, or any other French person with advanced electronics to sell.
We Brits grasped for a reference point. Eurovision, we decided. This’ll be a laugh. But then the action shifted to the rat-infested catacombs and the River Styx.
Cut to President Macron looking grim-faced and apprehensive.
And then we watched a train crash. An explosion of tricolour smoke that looked as if it was the product of a signaling malfunction on the Austerlitz Bridge. This set the scene for the sinister grey boatman to emerge from behind a grey water curtain into a grey evening.
Now you can take a popular audience to some dark places. The great musicals deal with epic subjects — the rise of the Nazis, gang warfare, serial killers, cannibalism, forced marriage and British opposition to global slavery, for example. Soap writers are notorious for “Greeking it up” when plotlines flag. But if you’re going to go deep it helps if the denoument is some kind of symbolic rebirth.
What we got was a Frenchman playing an accordion on a balustrade followed by worried-looking can-can girls performing raggedly on a wet ledge to a Pinky-and-Perky soundtrack. I gather some of these professional dancers were injured in the performance and the production company was lucky not to lose anybody into the Seine.
The accordian man was still tootling away on his balustrade as Faceless Man took to the rooftops for some parkour action. This was potentially a cool move but neither the BBC commentary team nor the Eurosport team I watched later thought to explain to viewers what parkour is or how the sport originated in France.
“He’s back again,” mused a commentator in an unconscious echo of Terry Wogan observing some baffling bit of Eurovision lunacy. I understand the need for secrecy but couldn’t the French have issued a list of subject headings ahead of the performance so that broadcasters could do their background research? And wouldn’t it have been wise to have a knowledgeable French cultural person on standby to dig the team out when they stalled?
But already we were so far into “what the actual fuck?” territory that the majority of the British population had probably given up trying to make sense of it all, and were onto their second drink.
Which was a shame at last we had something good — a celebration of the unique Parisian craft traditions that support the fashion and design industry. A brief glimpse of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The first laudable dance routine (no, I’m not counting the terminally coarse Lady GaGa) celebrated the builders and restorers of the Cathedral set to an atmospheric minimalist score. Under-rehearsed matelots flailed amateurishly on slippery pavements and then a gifted male ballet dancer, Guillaume Diop, performed on another rooftop wearing a skirt.
Then it got weird. The detached head of Queen Marie Antoinette croaked some words in French from a window of the Conciergerie and death metal band Gorija started up with a rendition of a revolutionary song. As spectacle, it was magnificent and I enjoyed it. But a few minutes in, as ribbons of blood cascaded into the Seine, something began to trouble me. “Hang on,” I thought, “they’re celebrating this mayhem.”
Because, deep in our bones, the British feel the French Revolution was nothing to be proud of. Nor do we hate on Marie Antoinette. We think of her as a pretty girl who found herself in it — literally — up to her neck and did her best to meet her tragic end with dignity after a terrible spell in prison separated from her young son Louis-Charles (who eventually died of despair, mistreatment and abuse).
A mechanical ship appeared with a lady singing the Habanera from Bizet’s opera Carmen over the top of Gorija. It wasn’t clear why and anyway the opera was written a century after the French Revolution. But never mind because next we cut to ladies swinging around on the top of poles and a smirky threesome set in a library.
It was like the coming together of a Rufus Wainwright music video, the playing card scene in Alice in Wonderland and something playwright Joe Orton wrote in his diary.
For the record, I noted down the classic works of French literature we glimpsed in this scene.
Romances Sans Parole by Paul Verlaine. A small book of poems written during his tumultuous affair with Arthur Rimbaud. It revolutionised French Romantic literature. Sweet, but they eventually broke up after a violent and very physical argument involving a fish.
One Ne Badine Pas Avec L’Amour by Alfred De Musset. A 19th-century Romantic and anti-Catholic play which repurposes the passionate letters written to him by his mistress George Sands. How she felt about this abuse of trust isn’t clear but she got depressed in later life and wrote about her “hatred of all men”. In your place, love, I would have too.
Passion Simple by Annie Ernaux. A short autobiographical book in which the Nobel Prize Winning novelist documents in detail her obsessive two-year love affair with a married man. Head for the hills, guys. She’s a bunny boiler.
Bel-Ami by Guy De Maupassant. A great novel in which a smooth-talking ex-military man shags his way through French high society. John Braine was inspired to write his 1950s British novel Room At The Top after reading it.
Sexe Et Mensonges by Leila Slimani. Published in 2020, this book (Sex and Lies) consists of interviews with Arab women about their intimate lives. This will probably cause yet another a diplomatic incident between France and Morocco when the dirham drops that it was featured in the Opening Ceremony.
Le Diable Au Corps by Raymond Radiguet. A 1923 novel which tells of a passionate wartime affair between a young married women whose husband is away at the Front and a 16-year-old boy. I knew there would be some borderline paedophilia tucked in there somewhere and this is it. The Balenciaga moment. And finally…
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Be honest, it’s the only one you’ve ever heard of, and that’s because of the Michelle Pfeiffer movie.
I jeer, because that’s what the British do when faced with Continental excess, and yes, of course I’ve heard of more of these than just Les Liaisons Dangereuses. And I’ll probably hunt down some English translations and read them. But I’m puzzled by the threesome episode. Yes, I get it that we Anglo-Saxons are uptight about these things. But all these books, in one way or another, explore the powerfully disruptive, and indeed tragically destructive, effects of sexual passion.
So then we rip those books to pieces, throw them in the air, and go off and have an impulsive threesome anyways? Far from being a celebration of French literature — Racine? Les Grandes Meaulnes? Madame Bovary? — it was style — exquisite beauty and style — over substance and the only sense it made was so insulting to Olympic values that I’d rather believe it didn’t make any sense at all.
So then, in counterpoint to the beautiful, spoilt and self-indulgent students of this section, we cut to 36 choristers of the French Army. No shortage of rigour there, surely. But they’re performing with Aya Nakamura, a French-Malian female rapper who has inspired controversy in France because her popular lyrics draw on the very un-French phrases of the Parisian ‘suburbs’ or banlieue where the majority of immigrants live. English-language speakers, used to the playful and sponge-like qualities of our native vocabulary, don’t understand how controversial this is in France. To drive the point home she was performing on the Pont Des Arts within striking distance of the stuffy Institut De France where the French language is policed by the Académie Française.
As a Brit I quite liked this section, heavy-handed though its symbolism was, especially the “Hey, we’re all French here,” salute at the end. But then we’re a culture of thieving British magpies. We repurpose everything from Peruvian bears to pomegranite molasses and make it our own. French culture isn’t like that, not as flexible, forgiving or porous, and so I reckon her performance was worth another hundred thousand votes at least to Le Pen.
And it was a shame that she felt the need to clutch at her crotch, like she feared that in her short dress she would suffer a tampon malfunction on global television. Combine that with the “free the ball” incident that came later and I don’t remember the 2012 Opening Ceremony being quite so… er…. genital, do you?
Then into the Louvre we went, to the strains of Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns. So now I know I’m not imagining this. The Dance of Death is playing in France’s greatest cultural storehouse. Characters from famous paintings climb down from the walls. Cut to members of the Paris Opera Ballet performing… er, no. That didn’t happen. As with the Hunchback, the glories of classical culture are skimmed over quickly as though they are a national embarrassment. And ultimately, the Mona Lisa ends up in the Seine.
Dear God, the contempt. And they think we’re too stupid to notice. When people are telling you who they are, believe them.
A mad and violent interlude involving nasty humour from the Minions (French art director Eric Guillon) was followed by my favourite bit of the entire show. Faceless emerged into the Musee d’Orsay — and a train rips out of a cinema screen reminding us of the role the French played in the development of early cinema and the terror such images inspired in their first audiences. Then off to the moon we go in an homage to those early animated films and to the glories of French science fiction. It was innocent and delightful — possibly because, being entirely filmed (by people who understood film), it was a segment that Jolly himself had little to do with.
By now it was teeming down outside. Pianist Alexandre Kantorow performed miserably in the rain. Mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel sang the Marseillaise beautifully from a rooftop. The heads of 10 famous Frenchwomen emerged from the River Seine to eerie music.
It was a lovely experience but Louise Michel was an anarchist and waved the original black flag. There’s a direct line of influence between her and Black Bloc.
Meanwhile, the boats full of cheering athletes passed. Niger saluted (they’ve just had a military coup) and Djibouti had a co-ordinated dance thing going on. I feared for little Eswatini whose boat looked in danger of being breached by the choppy waves.
Italy-Jamaica looked like the best boat to be on, with Israel huddled mournfully in the bow.
And now it was time for that notorious trans party-fashion design-Last Supper thing. Don’t try and tell me it wasn’t about Christianity at all but about Greek mythology. I saw what was there — as did millions of other people — and I have limited tolerance for gaslighting.
Instead of the blue smurf I would have had Ricky Tomlinson emerging from a cake shouting: “My arse!”
A section about inclusive French fashion design was inevitable and this is how they should have done it: A fashion retrospective in which iconic clothing pieces by the greatest Paris designers are gathered together from collections around the globe, or recreated. In the final segment the runway is stormed by the creations of youthful contemporary designers. Nobody in their right mind finds disabled or outsize models offensive any more and they could easily have tucked a few bearded ladies into the throng. Due homage would have been paid, and youngsters these days, eh?
But that’s not how it rolls in the world of woke. The aim is not to adapt and build but to obliterate.
Recently, I got into an argument with some eco-warriors about the extent to which the green movement has been infiltrated by gender ideology. I was told I couldn’t talk about it because trans people might be listening.
Okay, then. So don’t create an obscene parody version of The Last Supper, because some Christians might be watching. (And some Muslims too. There’s more leakage between the world’s major religions than most people realise and Muslims do acknowledge that Jesus was a prophet, he’s just not their main guy.)
The obtuseness of those who shout “Inclusion!” whilst excluding so many ordinary people is beyond parody.
It went on and on. Time that could have been devoted to the saved treasures of Notre Dame, ballet dancing in the Louvre or even a parade of famous French chefs resplendent in their whites and carrying enormous models of Camembert cheeses. They could have exploded giant champagne bottles in the sky. Cut to shameless travelogues for the Loire Valley and the Alpine ski resorts. Anything, but anything, would have been better than a prancing procession of freaks with their balls hanging out.
If I was in anyway dependent on the French tourism industry for my living I would be furious.
“This can’t go on for much longer, can it?” asked my Mum.
“You know the French,” I replied. “You know it can.”
Eventually, the disco party from hell gave way to another burst of Apocolyptic imagery. A flaming piano (although a nice rendition of an unpleasant song) and a pale mechanical horse speeding down the Seine. As with Gorija, part of me loved it but was this really the right time and place for Death on his — or in this case her — white charger?
Torchbearer Serena Williams looked seasick but thankfully wasn’t. Carl Lewis looked as if he was wondering what he was doing on a boat.
Only in the final segment did we catch sight of the Paris Olympic Opening Ceremony we might have had. Is it too cynical to suggest that this was because the formal, speechifying part of the show had to be signed off by more outside people?
The Eiffel Tower lit up with lasers, a 100-year-old Olympian provided a badly needed moment of pathos. The cauldron was a stunning, golden image of a hot-air balloon over the Tuileries Garden, and poor Celine Dion sang her heart out.
Having watched the show twice now (the second time with a notebook) I am left reeling at the irresponsibility of it all. Did no-one in a senior position think to query the wisdom of certain elements of the show? Clearly not. An opportunity to shore up France’s declining soft power — which resides mostly in its magnificent bourgeous material culture — was squandered in favour of… what, exactly? Some have blamed fawning obsequeousness to the banleiue, others a Parisian fondness for la mode, the latest fashion, being at all costs remorselessly up-to-date.
I think it’s worse than that. The team that created this show hated Western culture and Western values. And they told us they hated it as plain as could be. I have lived all my life anticipating the West’s inevitable decline in relative global importance. I accepted it must be like that in the interests of justice but I thought we’d be left with our history and memories, our self respect and pride in the achievements of the West. I knew I’d end up a little, ethnic old lady in a world that was now something else. But I’d hoped they would leave me and the things I loved alone, until they died with me.
I understand now that it can’t happen like that because obliteration IS the project. The French do not reform, they overturn. And a remarkable number of the world’s ills stem from the bad ideas of Parisian intellectuals.
If you wish to create a Marxist, don’t send him to Moscow, send him to Paris, as the saying goes. Those fabled street cafes have a lot to answer for.
And the menace comes from within. Not from the people on the small boats but from the privileged woke warriors who inhabit our universities and other cultural institutions, and who have mainlined the ideas of French thinkers such as Foucault, Lacan, Derrida and Baudrillard. They tell us we’re too stupid and bigoted to understand, whilst being unable to perceive that in their iconoclasm they’re chopping away at the trunk of the tree that gives them their freedom, prosperity and security.
And the result is — ‘accidental’ underwear malfunctions from exhibitionists and the Mona Lisa in the Seine. The City of Light, a product of over a thousand years of history, portrayed as the sleaze capital of the world.
And a lethal and criminal small boats problem in the English Channel that persists because so many people at the heart of the French Establishment really don’t give a damn. They’ve just shown that they don’t.
So who else will suffer because of this degenerate show? Not the preening narcissists who created it, but gays and lesbians in less developed countries who might have hoped that patience and rational argument might eventually win the day, and decriminalise the way that they are.
That won’t happen now. From Iranian mullahs to African dictators, there will be people in power who watched this wretched production and thought to themselves: “If this is where it will end, no way!”
What a joyful river ride you had