![]() With projected spending of 8.8 billion euros ($9.7 billion), the Games should cost considerably less than Tokyo’s $15.4 billion splurge on the pandemic-delayed 2021 Olympics. Organizers insist they remain on track to deliver safe and inclusive Games that also aim to be greener than ever, in part by using existing or temporary venues instead of building new ones. Also concerning are investigations by French anti-corruption police into the awarding of a small number of Olympic contracts. ![]() Taken together, the unrest raised fears of more turbulence during the Games. The picture-postcard city aims to use its charms to wow audiences, starting with an unprecedented waterborne opening extravaganza on July 26, 2024.īefore those six nights of violence, there were also sustained protests this year against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms. And seldom have the Olympics been as eagerly anticipated, coming after the global losses and separations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and against the backdrop of war in Ukraine. ![]() Rarely has that need been more pressing for France, a country that has lurched from crisis to crisis since 2017, when Paris was chosen to host the Games. And the Games can be this unifying moment.” “I said to myself that things were really, really, really bad, and that we absolutely had to find something that also provides perspective, momentum, to young people, to the country. “What really scared me at that moment was to hear young people, even children, explain that the terrorists were heroes and that Charlie was guilty of having pushed freedom of expression too far,” Hidalgo says, referring to Charlie Hebdo, the newspaper that repeatedly caricatured the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. With the country outraged and hurting from the bloodshed, she saw the Olympics as an opportunity for France to rebound and heal. PARIS - For the mayor of Paris, the city’s journey to next year’s Olympic Games included an epiphany born of brutality: the slaughter of 17 people by gunmen acting in the names of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.Īnne Hidalgo says the 2015 attacks at a provocative satirical newspaper and a kosher Parisian supermarket were “truly fundamental” in steering her to the idea of bringing the Games back to the French capital for the first time since 1924. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |